I met Virginia in a wave of sleet.
On Decatur, a hundred winters ago,
with a black iris, black hair in ponytail,
with a tongue like a nightcrawling widow,
Virginia whispered tornados behind the backs of the
grey-suited saxophone players, going blue in the cheeks,
under their blackface.

Under a flimsy sheet of moon sliver sky and a dim streetlight,
Virginia kicked a soda can along the cracking concrete.
With each bar we passed, I hollered, "Thank God we're alive!"
and danced a shapeless jig.

Near Williamson cemetery, Virginia's white knuckles laced into mine.
"The amount of time we have cheapens whatever purpose we have,"
Virginia hissed.

I caressed her serpentine neck.
A lone car's high beams
made Virginia's silhoutte tower above the cemetery gates,
made Virginia's black irises madden to poisonous yellow.

She loosened my grey necktie.
I let down her hair.
A sea of collected strands fell
like a closing curtain.
The distant saxophone ascended to heaven,
leaving me below,
leaving me below,
leaving me to spend the night bellowing for above.