Pompeii On the Mississippi

Pompeii On the Mississippi    
   
     They find themselves in a classic pose on the gazebo in the Natchez bluff park with the sky stained in red wine. Marsha’s elbows prop her on the railing and his hands clasp her face.
     He says, “Do you remember the lemon tree which grew in our patio?”
     “It always bore fruit. It was a dry season when we planted it. But when the limbs were heavy with citrus my heart sang,” she replies.
     “Just a few drops made our casseroles savory.”
     “We were vegetarians when it wasn’t cool.”    
     “John, let’s live the dream again. From now on only a plant-based diet for us.”
     “What worked for us two thousand years ago in Pompeii can do so again,” he replies.
     “If memory serves me right you illustrated the walls of our fair city with models in lurid poses. Tell me the truth. Did you ever take part in those scenes after the brush was put down?”
     “I never even entertained such a thought. I was always knocking on your door.”
     “But the act of putting those scenes into art must have required intense focus. These were actual people making love. You were a voyeur in a ménage à trios. How could that not have turned you on?”
     “I wouldn’t take it that far,” he replies.
     “It was far enough to be cheating in my book.”
     “It was my bread and butter. My heart was in illustrating the tales of Ovid.”
     She catches her breath. “Be still my beating heart. I live and breathe Ovid. All is forgiven.”
     “How I miss our nights just silently reading together. But even more, so sharing a bottle.”
     “You’re a much better bed warmer than a book,” he says.
     She replies, “My readiness to put down a book is made all the more eager by the prospect of crawling under the sheets with you.”
     “My favorite Ovid books are his Ars amatoria trilogy. Book one teaches a man how to find a woman. Book two teaches him how to keep a woman.”
     Marsha replies, “Well you’ve found me so that is a moot point. And you’ve kept me over two thousand years and countless lifetimes. So that is also covered.”
     John replies, “The third book shows a woman how to win and keep the love of a man.”
     Marsha says, “I don’t need a book to tell me that. My study is time tested over millennia with you as my subject.”
     “The Persian poet, ‘Omar Khayyam’ wrote odes to the joy of wine.”
     Marsha says, “You read the Englishman, Fitzgerald’s, translation of it on a summer’s day upon a greensward shaded by a willow bough.”
     John replies, “The jug of wine I brought gave us a buzz like the pleasure our fellow picnickers the bumblebees must take in gathering pollen. Omar’s path is a fruitful one for us.”
      She replies, “You never turned down my Tuscan wine. We might find each other in the marketplace. No matter how long it had been since our last date, you never lost your taste for my jug of spirits, especially when it had been a good season for grapes. Let’s share a bottle tonight and remember old times. Join me in my boudoir and we’ll try the locally fermented muscadine wine. The southern grape is a wild nymph so I hear.”
     Her figure eight becomes a black silk silhouette.