Nativity

He met her in a tavern and invited her to stroll
with him in the garden to escape the clack and roll
of the dice on gaming tables that made conversation hard,
so they went to view flamingos in the verdant tavern yard.

Their talk was convoluted, far above the usual yawn
of “polite” conversation as they strolled across the lawn.
She had been to Bali and he had been to Nome,
and so they toured these foreign places, going there to roam

beyond the borders of this garden and this tavern and this town,
and when they reached the meadow, this was where he laid her down,
thus beginning a long story that ended here with me,
of how my father met my mother and how I came to be.

Prompt words today are volute, happenstance, yawn, flamingo, tavern, roll.  Image by Kristine Zanate on Unsplash