His teeth feral teeth
and putrid breath

does not correlate
with the pale shoulders

and soft ways of
the woman with him;

somehow they make
the Multiflora

rose, rise
and blossom.

She is soap smooth from Achilles
to scalp’s apex

for years contemplated
suicide

instead, she learned
the right nutrients

creates life that bursts
above all

else.

Slumped on an old pink couch, television
test pattern flickering off their biscotti
painted walls,  Pall Mall smoldering
on the rug beneath Jack’s fingers,
Lorene mostly dead, Jack might
as well be;  early a.m., dark.

I  am knocking on  doors,
open  them and hear me
shout across the U.S.A. :

I may be black as blindness
or rainbow hue,
but I am as
American,

as you.

She boils animal bones
for one  day,  up three
times a night to check
the rolling calcium

and within the mineral water
she believes are the dreams
of cultures like Jews
rising from

mass graves, missing faces
from family portraits, no
violence against young
or old;

she drinks.

I need to know
if you think of me;

winter is coming
and it often arrives
with unexplainable sorrow.