Incident At A Gentleman’s Club

She had a last vision
of a Brazilian river.
His last words
were of the endangered
Confederate trillium,  
glimpsed in the Florida Panhandle
on a college hiking trip.

Then he lost the marbles
and there were bullet holes
in the pole, the stripper,
the back wall…

fortunately, 
they kept a shotgun
under the bar.

He’d just wanted to shoot marbles again,
the game he’d learned from his grandfather…
He was no good as a shooter then.
She’d wanted to see the Rio Formoso again,
wanted to see her mother…
She was no stripper then. 

Lost his archaic marbles, then:

bullet holes,
dented poles,
the woman

vanishing.  It’s to him
as if she wasn’t there

but she was.  A marble
to be shot, so she was.

Wow, said the newspaper.
This is not making much sense.
Why would he do this, was there a grudge
or a vengeance?

A brain scientist will be called in
to explain. It’s fractal, she’ll say.
It’s got
infinite dust
to be cleaned up.

It’s revenge for the vanishing
Confederate Trillium, yes.
Revenge for lost marbles.
He forgot that at once.

She forgot the Brazilian river,
the beautiful
Formoso.

It’s fractal.  It cleans up
beautifully.  They
cleaned up beautifully.

Nothing new in the story:
crazy person, tragic
person…
just this,
unspoken:

Mama,
are you here?

Grandfather,
are you here?

No one plays marbles 
anymore, and
no one here knows
how lovely
the Rio Formoso
can be in the right light —

oh for the right light
once again on the leaves,
through
the translucent 
vanishing flowers;

no one here
can explain to anyone else
how beautiful…