She has make up on and her face looks pretty. Kathleen blows out the match and looks up.

"Hello Kate," Jack says and sits down.

"My name isn't Kate. It's Kathleen." The bourbon makes Kathleen feel confident. "Hello, Dell," She says mockingly. "You know Sue worships your ***. She just loves to call you, Dell. She thinks Dell is such a **** name." Kathleen takes a last drag on her cigarette and rubs it out in the ash tray. What should I call you?"

"How about, Darling?"

She looks up from the whiskey glass she is fondling in her slim hands. "Hello, Jack, Darling." Her soft, deep voice whispers accenting his name and the word, Darlin.

Kathleen crosses her legs and the black dress rides up to the middle of her thigh.

Jack glances at the milky white flesh between the blue ***** hose and the hem of her dress. She is drunk, but Dell does not care. He leans forward. "Do you wanna dance?"

"But no one else is dancing."

"Well, we could go to the beach and walk along the sand."

"It's 20 degrees out there." She takes the glass and swallows the last of the whiskey. "We'll freeze."

"I'll keep you warm."

In the other room the kitchen door swings open as Paul Keater and Bob O'Malley come rushing out, talking, laughing and rubbing their noses.

"Come let's dance." says Kathleen.

Jack stands up and takes her hand. She rises and as he draws her close her ******* flatten out against his chest. Jack feels her heart thumping.

Across the smoke filled crowded room, the bride is cutting the wedding cake. "That's a beautiful wedding gown." Kathleen tells Jack as he moves her around the ***** floor in and out of the circles of light cast by the overhead lamps. " Theresa looks beautiful."

"So do you." Jack holds her tighter.

"Do you really think so?" Kathleen is flattered. She is perpetually surprised if some one thinks she is pretty.

"I do," He says with sincerity.

She rests her head on Delleto's shoulder. The man with the bruised face disturbs Kathleen.

Most men like to talk about themselves. They have a need to tell what they own or what they can do well. They need to impress and when Kathleen is with one of her men he genuinely awes her.

Lifting her head off of his shoulder, "Does your face hurt?"

"Only when I laugh or cry," he says as he moves Kathleen in and out of the circles of light.

"Jack Delleto has anyone ever told you, your a strange man?"

"Just my mother."

"Did you win?"

"What does it matter? Sometimes tryin is more important. Not giving up. "

"you lost."

"Yeah."

" Kate, what's important to you?"

Kathleen raises her head off of his shoulder to look up at him. "I don't want to depend on welfare and other people and I want to send my son to college. But most of all I want a home." She rests her cheek against his. I lived in foster homes all my life and I always knew one day I'd have to leave.

"Do you know the difference between a house and a home."

Jack thinks for a moment, "No, I' don't."

And her voice is a roaring whisper in his ear.

"LOVE."

The song comes to an end. Kathleen takes a cigarette from the pack on the table and puts it to her lips.

Jack strikes a match and the light flickers in her eyes. "Maybe, sometimes you'll tell me about your home."

"Do you want me too?" She leans forward and puts the cigarette to the flame. The flame flickering in her eyes.

"Yeah." Jack blows out the match.

she wanders into my soul
so effortless
sweet and easy
like sunshine
on a sunday afternoon

she feels the raindrops falling
can see the silence calling
and steals the love
from my heart

divides my soul into equal parts
and kicks the pieces
into a hole
that she has dug
just for me

with her eyes.

i pull the cord
a sputter and a spit

he
she
it
tells me,
let the grass grow under
your feet
pick no
weeds
let the leaves lie where
they fall
put a lounge chair
on the front lawn
sunbathe naked
(***** the neighbors)
throw the empty
beer cans
into the street
and when the cops come.
laugh.

pick a mountain
any mountain

climb up through
the ice and snow
and when
you get to the top
of the mountain

keep climbing

she sees it in the laughter of children
feels the vibrations of a song
hears it in the silence of the darkest night.
always a blue sky
a sunny day
the sails of her ship
billowing in a west wind

she is a shotgun and a prayer
would like 3 cats
a dog
the cabin in the woods with cable tv

she dreams of the open field where
the white horse always waits
ready to make the run
to a meadow high in the distance


daughter

I'm searching for intelligent life
not in outer space but here on earth.
I turn over a rock
and find congress, the president,
a couple used car salesman
and a worm.

the choice is obvious.

she walks prospect avenue in the rain.
dead eyes, sore feet
the flowers have wilted into
the shadows of acceptance.

she finds the corner
and the last light lit,
wants a match for her cigarette.

a ****** that has found her god.
a needle and a bed of thorns.


the beep from a car's horn,
so a customer waits,
swings open a rusty gate.

and when that door

slams

shut

the prisoner of light asks,

"where have all the flowers gone?

give me a ledge on a mountain
18 inches wide
quite a lot of room to pray.

when the sun rises
the flowers of the field weep:
let me love your eyes,
your lips, your compassion.
let me lie next to you.

let me walk the high wire
of  loving you.