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Blue notes
of Big Band syncopation
etch into the windshield's frost.
Under the streetlight's blur,
the good wife clicks her nails
over the ribs of a silver thermos.
She keeps time
with an emerald light
on the harbor buoy that surges
like a metronome timing high tide.
A lace scarf, secured
with an amethyst broach, warms her
while she awaits a vessel
from New Amsterdam, or Peru,
or Las Tablas, a port of the Western Pass.
This night's chill recalls
her wedding trip with her sergeant:
New York, champagne,
cheek-to-cheek, the night
the Duke played on.
His stripes and brass buckles long-packed,
her gallant one waits, transfused
and pallid on the ulcer ward.
One sunrise ago she swabbed his blood
off the bathroom's hexagon tile
and bleached his white robe.
The Red Cross can not help.
Her vigil for AB Negative has ended here.
A handkerchief hangs stiff on the antenna.
The engine idles, and
she dials in an AM channel.
Vinyl car seats are rigid, cold to the touch.
Fog horn timbre rattles the night.
Just after twelve, the Valdez anchor splashes
with a belly-full of cargo.
Unpolished men, warm in toboggans
and bright wool frocks, trot toward her.
Whores bargain.
She motions
and pleads in broken phrases:
"Passport. Blood.
Blood type."
The scratchy radio signal fades.
Twisted across her chafed brow
her lace scarf seems to tighten
as harbor steam spills into the car.
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