Girlie magazines dating back to 1972 are scattered across the floor.
The skeletons of two pet canaries lie dormant inside a wired cage.
Bessie Mae died here 8 months ago.
From her lips, and from her eyes comes nothing like before.
Leroy, her lover, her only friend, the man she lived with for
over 30 years locked her body in their bedroom.
He didn't want to part from her.
Leroy has no friends to detect anything that might be suspect.
He wants nothing between the two of them at all.
No one comes near to interfere.
Their bedroom is padlocked, stale, and stagnant with mildew, looking
the way it did before she died.
Foul odors ooze up through their bedroom ventilation ducts,
Leroy contends that a dead rat in the basement is causing the odors.
Leroy loves to lie about his sacred love affairs.
Layers of dust blanket over the mahogany floors, and the maid doesn’t come
here anymore.
Bessie Mae’s remains are wrapped in a scarlet housecoat,
Dried blood sleeps in a small pool beneath her bed.
In time they both will sleep, sole witnesses to this fiasco
their lives will catch them in; enduring it, holding
their tongues till time matters no more.
Nothing appears changed, lovers unwilling to depart.
Michael Lee Johnson lived ten years in Canada during the Vietnam era. He is a Canadian and USA citizen. Today he is a poet, freelance writer, amateur photographer, small business owner in Itasca, Illinois. He has been published in more than 850 small press magazines in 27 countries, and he edits 10 poetry sites. Author's website http://poetryman.mysite.com/. Michael is the author of The Lost American: From Exile to Freedom (136 page book) ISBN: 978-0-595-46091-5, several chapbooks of poetry, including From Which Place the Morning Rises and Challenge of Night and Day, and Chicago Poems. He also has over 77 poetry videos on YouTube as of 2015: https://www.youtube.com/user/poetrymanusa/videos
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