Notations from a photograph of Annabelle Pieroni

-Auntie-

Annabelle,— your red hair’s so hot

it makes the young men pant.

you said the “colored boys” gave-way

toward the gutters on your approach as the steamy 

linen skirts of summer clung to your skin on the sweltering

sidewalks of Memphis.

this is the way it was, or so you told me from the parlor

of my father’s house and it all made sense to me back then

because the heat of your hair beat in me like the lick of a piston. 

take me to the Seekonk Speedway, Annabelle,––

pay for my ticket third row from the track's first turn.

there, we’ll watch the racing majigs go 'round and 'round—

and when they crackup in their violence
you'll scream bloody joy through the particles
of sheet-metal and gasoline beading on your skin.

with its soft-hats stained in sweat at the band,
with cigars in its teeth, clenched at the tension for speed,
the teeming grandstands pressed the turbulent cycle around you,
the burn of the track in your hair of fire, Annabelle,

hot as Memphis at the outskirts to the city of granite.