Open with sunny skies a cartoon rainbow
cottonball scattered clouds
flora and fauna dancing Disney
smiling daisies singing squirrels nibbling baby deer
From off-screen left and right
a boy and the girl lope toward each other
field of lush green grass sways
gauzy lensing snail slow motion
old television toilet paper ads
Eventually they clutch in a strangling embrace
close-up here of pores on perfect skin
cheek-muscles cramping into the face of the other
blood sugar levels elevate to explode
Cut to a dreary winter day menacing gray
sun sinking a ship whose every passenger will drown
a slicing wind howling up a littered street
urban decay blight of old brick and rusting steel
shattered windows glare in grotesque buildings looming
over sidewalks cracked sprouting weeds flossing picks
the drizzled rain turns hard
a cigarette butt rocks through a gutter
topples down a cracked storm drain
to night black opaque dead deep dark
love matters
Lanning Lee 