by Tim Suermondt

The charming couple will split
over bad sex and incompatible philosophy —

the long tracking shots and extreme close–ups
will exhaust them and a generation.

A few difficult books will be packed —
the light turned off in the small apartment

with the red curtains and burgundy roses.
The couple will tender a farewell kiss

by the square but will jolt off in slow motion
in separate directions — the final camera shot

over the city’s rooftops, lingering nostalgically
until the credits scroll from darkness into history.

by Philip Dacey

Knife, banana, bowl — props for the theater
our father staged each day as he gave voice
to slice after slice: “I am the Emperor,
none mightier than I,” till that one’s place
at blade’s edge was usurped by the next.    In vain
the deposed ruler protested — “No!” — as he fell.
Over and over (with slight voice–changes) this scene
repeated till the knife was empty, the bowl full.

We three half–identified with all those sure
they had the right to that high perch in the air
and half–laughed at the same so foolishly blind
as to be surprised by the predictable end.
Given that rich food morning after morning,
we children ate heartily and grew up strong.

by Philip Dacey

If it’s to be
a concerto for violin,
let the orchestra score
be transcribed for piano

so that we hear two voices
in dialogue with each other
rather than one voice
contending with dozens of voices.

Two is all one needs
to say everything.
Ask the yin and the yang.
Ask the day and the night.

Let the orchestra’s notes
shrink into the clarity
of black and white,
the ivories’ home for hands.

Let the orchestra fill its arena,
its super–sized bowl, with super sound,
music as a sporting event —
was more ever less? —

while elsewhere the intimacy
of violin and piano fits
into a small, private room —
was less ever more?

We listen at the door.

by Philip Dacey

St. Louis. The Forties.    The neighborhood poor white.
(Or say white trash, given how when the flight
to the suburbs happened muddy lawns greened
all up and down the block, and newly black–owned
homes soon saw their values rocket upward.)
I’m five, playing in the sandbox in our backyard,
when a black child, a boy my age, appears
from out of the alley, sees me, stops and stares.
(Could this be the first such face–to–face
up–close encounter with the other race
for both of us?    And how did he come to be there?
His mother a cleaning–woman, and he came with her
until he wandered off, bored watching her dust?)
Suddenly I’m a host and he’s my guest.
I gesture toward the sandbox.    “Do you want to play?”
A wary look, then he decides to stay.
Little talk.    A shared scoop and pail.    To build
together, sand on sand.    Holes dug, holes filled.
A brotherhood of work a child can do.
Call it a dream.    An oasis in time.    Call it true.

Enter Mrs. Blandford — the point of this story —
one yard over, a figure of hysteria
on her back porch, waving her arms as she screams
at the boy to get out and stay out and seems
about to charge down her steps just as he
jumps up and scatters sand and dignity
to escape back into the alley, while I,
all wonder, as if lightning had split a blue sky,
don’t think to say — too young to have such sense —
“Our yards are separated by a fence
and what happens here is not your business,”
but instead sit still, beginning to score the loss
into memory, so that even long decades away
Mrs. Blandford will burn as fiercely as on that day.