-Norena Requiem-

Romance:  the sharp-

edged meadow-

grass cuts into my feet

the hot
asphalt leaving little

red indentations

on the skin of my heels. the sun

blisters the back of my neck

and I’m just now beyond the billboards.

I’m running to Beatti Street,

to the house where Norena lives.

the game is lost.

I struck out twice

once swinging once looking.

a lazy dribbler in the 8th

found its way
through the hole at short, but

I'm left stranded at first.

It's a bad day at the ballpark.

I can run fast
but “no stealing no bunts”

was called by slowpoke Don

DeSoto before
the first pitch was thrown.

I should’ve known.
I should've seen it coming. 

but the call must be honored.

same as “no chips”
      same as  "trumps"

            same as “shotgun"—

Affettuso:  I call Norena's name

from the space between a shout and a whisper

from below the open second-floor window just above

the angled roof of the stairway's landing
where the warm June

breeze cons the green, opaque,
quarter-drawn shade of her room to pull away
then drift again inward.

Agitato:  from the landing, her grandmother,
long from the Azores stands strictly,

scolding with a wave of her saucy ladle:

“You go home! Norena no likes you”!

and it's a bad day on Beattie street.