The two young women arrived at the beach as others do, carrying bits and bobs.
They stripped down to their suits, laid out towels, took looks around, all as
others do. Next, they spent fully half an hour taking photos, not of one
another but each holding her phone at arm’s length, trying to find exactly the
right angle for the best bod selfie. The Mses. Narcissus visit a Hawaiian
beach.
On the afternoon of our Burns evening I played tennis. I returned home, parked,
found a gathering of the girls beside the side door. What, I asked, was up?
“We’ve heard,’ Mimo explained, “that there are to be burns.”
“We find this worrying."
“What,” I asked, as I guided Mimo away from the door with my foot, “do you know
about Burns? It’s poetry.”
“No, no, no, no, no.” They were unanimous in their firm rejection of my
statement.
“No poetry in fire.”
“It’s the lore."
“Risk to life and limb.”
I said, “We’re talking at cross purposes.”
Cheddar explained that they weren’t feeling cross at all, merely offering
cautious opinion. If gods wished to play with fire that was up to them.
I tried, “When chapman billies leave the street, and drouthy neibors, neibors
meet, as market days are wearing late…”
Peccorino walked away muttering, “Off his rocker.”
Mimo followed.
I looked at the sky to help myself recall those lines I have by heart. When I
looked back down I found I was reciting to an hydrangea.
Nary a chicken in view.
Burns has that effect on some.
We put out complete slices of bread. It was hard to watch how little Cheddar
got. Ever on the outside, she circled, believing her turn would come.
If she got some, I missed it. I shouted out the window, “A chickens’ a chicken
for a’ that.”
She looked up, but didn’t spy me.
We think we’ll call the dog Hamish.
David Ritchie,
Portland,
Oregon------------------------------------------------------------------
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