Bagpiper abrupt

bagpiper abrupt in the rental wind

strained as relatives with itineraries

dour before downpours in university drainpipes

during tennis season’s plaid of plans

 

in the city clannish with singles

the highroad grin and golf game

knee-ripped denims now-you-see-him-now

you-don’t like the bagpiper’s croon

 

and hush the women are on the low road

in quiet cacophony one is edgy as a kilt

the berserk solos sporadic as departures

when women have forwarding addresses

 

up north the bagpipers process

like a grandfather ghost at the French horn

with the ethnic utterance the strangers go

some curling with brooms and bad weather

 

one sees a bagpipe-o-gram delivered

out-of-custom under lilac hedges

and the drumming of rain   jagged

an obligato like divorce    the shut door

that obviates any fear of lightning

Katherine L Holmes

Barnwood poetry magazine