It was, it seemed, one glad continuous day:

my eighty hours, give or take, in Milwaukee.

From landing at the airport 10 am Thursday

to leaving Sunday afternoon, Labor Day Eve.

What can I choose from the string of happy events?

Our time at the Lake, our beach-blanket lunch

in the generous shade of sprawling green branches?

My first chocolate malted at Ted's in Wauwatosa?

The sausage tortellini soup you so kindly made

the night of my arrival, but I conked out early

so we had it Friday after our trip to the Lake?

No single thing: rather, the memory

of a luminous soul's kind hospitality,

dear poetfriend a thousand miles away.