Night of Visages

The Ballerina

Black eyes stared from the darkness,
Slowly, almost imperceptibly,
She emerged as her shaking hands
stretched toward me, an invitation
to meet halfway. A strange calm came
upon us as our fingertips touched.
Smiling broadly, her throat was deep
and dark like her black eyes.
A ballerina’s red tulle of nainsook
floated at her hips. A single shake,
A slight rustle invited me to dance.
She pulled me in circles in
a moment of pure joy.

The Welder

A black skull cap with a man in it,
burn marks on his black face, marred
hands, black shoulders glistening
with sweat. No shirt, just a welder’s
heavy apron, scarred by hot metal sparks,
spatter, and slag, his face a grimace
of emotional pain asking me for help.
He turned and was gone.

The Fireman

The hunched back of a fireman’s bunker
coat confronted me. Dorsal spines poked
through the jacket running to the tip
of a tail. The head turned unnaturally,
a face peering back over narrow shoulders.
An angry scowl from leathered skin; large
threatening eyes above a crooked nose.
An unhappy man with a pinched head,
wearing an anime of a fire Captain’s helmet,
A first responder of sin.

The Sailor

Bismark black, 1945? Youthful
warrior wearing old eyes.
A cook, a coward, a gunner,
a hero? He is perfectly still
like a picture sent home to a girlfriend,
a parent, a wife.
Or is he just dead?