Deft hands cut precise whirrs the ceiling fan
closed eyes bar view the scene can't scan
before they reach the ground take windy spin
falling in scattered piles gathered for coffin.

Shreds of gray and black dot the white shroud
little to write about nothing to be proud
don't reduce anymore that's about fine
add not to the growing woes says hairline.

Cool the clime crawls the clock at its own pace
halts the head to think about the changing face
would it look better or yield a worse clown
ridiculed by one and all folks of the town.

Nothing can be done enough damage is done
fiercely to blow the heat waits fiery sun
over sir says barber open my eyes
the one in the mirror doesn't look any wise.

Her touch is as cold
as the snow on statues

I wait in my dark suit
like a suitor in the shadows

cast in the courtyard of the dead
alone in the middle of the night

she shows her folded hands
holding the Ace of sorrows

black like the flowers
I bring her tonight

beneath a silent moon
gathered like dust on my boots

late in the afternoon
as I walked along the low road

to call on her
in the garden of stones.

through her window, she watched
sun shafts through the trees, a transient
tapestry on her potholed lane

a half dozen eggs sat beside her bowl
ready to be beat for the scramble; a half dozen
hours after her street was alight with noise

first the pernicious pop of the zip guns
then the cops '38s; then the howling of the
sirens, the howling of the survivors

mostly Chico's mama and sister
who watched him gunned down, and tried to plug
his half dozen holes with their hands

the street doesn't remember, she thought,
even with a biography of black blood dried
in its cracks and crevices

if it did, surely it would protest, or
make a solemn sound when the dawn shed
all that honest light on dark death

she cracked the eggs, put them
in the hot lard, not bothering with the bowl
breaking yolks blindly in the black skillet