Against Reason

Although my veranda was nothing more
than cobblestone tile
wrapped with window screens
to prevent the perseverance of mosquitoes,

we sat there, as if it were a resort, sipping mojitos,
watching parakeets flit
between mango trees,
when your son Seth mentioned that the king

of France is bald, and we toasted
him in absentia
before the rain
interrupted our revelry—like dementia disrupting

the give of love after decades, leaving the take behind.
We dashed inside
and perched beside a window
to watch the sky fill with lightning and count

toward the crescendo of summer’s first thunder.
We gazed out
at avocado trees,
their blossoms, clustered suns orbiting

the Mangifera, when the rain ceased its beating
of palm fronds,
and the mangos burst
into a sunlit song before we could see they

were parakeets fluttered with wet, darting
from branch to branch.