Our Last Date

She’s late, a half-hour,

Grins naughty as sin,

Smells like old fish.

Little Willy John’s “Fever”

Hisses, fades, in and out

On nighttime AM radio

From Seattle.

My Chevy’s front seat

Rhythms ‘n blueses one last time;

Bob Summerise on the low and slow

From his World of Music,

“To real . . . cool . . . cats . . . everywhere.”

Our last date,

Lost fever,

Hiss and fade.

One morning in speech class at Olympic College,

I ask Mildred Summerise,

“Would you know a Bob Summerise?”

Reticent, reluctant, embarrassed, actually blushing

Behind dark velvet melanin: “My brother. At one time.”

Conversation closed. I still wonder why.