By and By

Lately, when she couldn’t sleep, she debated whether
she should forsake winter for a more salubrious weather.
Hidden under blankets with a heater at her feet,
she dreamed of balmy breezes and the sunlight’s heat.

In less than a day, she could drive down to the border
and find a small posada where she could sit and order
margaritas by the pitcherful beside a sunlit sea—
a novel fallen from her hand, a chihuahua on her knee.

Tacos or enchiladas? In her hometown, she’d be loath
to order either one of them, but here she’d order both,
all her peccadillos unviewed by censoring eye.
She pledged an oath to do it in the by and by.

Prompt words today are border, both, salubrious, peccadillo, winter and hidden.

—lyrics by S. Fillmore Bennett and music by Joseph  P. Webster