Summer Whites

I want old-fashioned metaphor; I dress in black.

My son was murdered. I bear witness in black.

The graveyard shocks with rampant green.

In a rusted chair sits grief, enormous in black.

Died July 16, 1983.

Navy's white headstone, christcross in black.

A cardinal flames-sudden visitation.

Holy spirit? Surcease from black?

Grackles keen in mad falsetto.

Treeful of banshees. Fracas in black.

It should be told, of course, in small details

and with restraint (artfulness in black).

He was a sailor in summer whites in a port city.

He was walking, streets dangerous in black.

The bullet entered right shoulder, ricocheted.

In the ground his dress blues decompose to black.

I am Isabel. He was Jerry John. The dead

are listening for their names, soundless in the black.