Triad

STEPHEN 
carries secrets he hasn’t had time 
to decode, 
takes his clues from me 
as I search for signals myself, 
decks his walls with Johnny Cash, 
a brass rubbing, a moonshot, 
writes a poem: “Get out of my hair, war,” 
and in his nightmares is suddenly 
grown-up and suddenly irrational 
like the grown-up world. 

LORRAINE 
secretes vats of grey matter 
in her organic, pulsating room, 
creates swirling abstracts 
which she sells for pennies, 
anxious to be what she is, 
she is saved from the cliche 
of her Shirley Temple looks 
by the butterfly blur 
that flits across her face 
and curtains her secret self. 

SCOTT 
dresses on the move 
amid small-craft warnings 
of colds and other catastrophes, 
smiles and rubs 
my lipstick brand, 
chooses a coat outgrown last year — 
red and blue like superman’s — 
walks out alone, 
his body enough to shelter him 
from rain and other agonies.