On page 28 in my poetry chapbook, Now Might as Well Be Then

Blue Moon Every Twenty Years
for Barry

Blue Moon was not my favorite song
until the night you sang to me,
the night before our wedding day in 1964.

You were a student of the forties music,
played it with your band when you were
just a high school lad in nineteen fifty-five.

On the Love Boat with orchestra in eighty-four,
microphone in hand, you owned the stage,
like you were born to be the rage. Like Frank,
you melted hearts when you sang for me.

Aboard a river boat in Ottawa, in two thousand six,
silver-haired peers applauded when you sang
Blue Moon in October, on my birthday.

Suddenly, I was twenty-four once more,
adoring you and longing to spend my life

with you. Years flew past on wings so soft

I hardly noticed.

As you returned to sit beside me, smiling at your new
found fame in Canada, you whispered a promise.
I’ll sing your song for you again in twenty years.