NEWTON’S LAW
By Lenny Lewis
He’d been raped in Tripoli
so he said. Hosted a parasite.
Given it to her without asking.
She sported a livid scar
where the worm had turned.
Soho before it was fashionable.
Before AIDS. Long before
every properly accessorized
white woman had a black man
on her arm. In those days
they threw vagabond brothers
off the roof just to confirm
Newton’s Law of Gravity.
When he got back
from his maritime peregrinations
he wasn’t upset his wife
had shown her conjugal cicatrix
to a young buck from the Village.
In fact – a full moon
glistened on the cobblestones.
“ Come down. Do it again.
He wants to watch.”
THE SHOW
Sitting in the cupola
secluded by grape vines.
It may have been ice tea
or mint julep in May
around the Derby in Kentucky.
A perfectly Southern thing.
Women from the mountains.
Mother and daughter.
Married both in Lexington.
Daughter now a mother
of two made a bold confession.
At fifteen and a year older
than when her mother
lost her virginity
to a married man. She
had wanted “to try him out.”
She had reliable information
he had “a big dick.”
He recalled lying on a bed
the daughter and her
underage friend coming
into the room. A Blue Grass
beauty next to him.
Moonshine high.
Her legs in the air.
Moaning her high lonesome
like a cat in heat.
The girls left.
Mother and friends jamming
on Black Beauties and bourbon.
Engaged in extravagant banter.
Waiting for the show to begin.
The woman on the bed
later divorced her husband-
said to be good breeding stock-
and married the milkman.
About the Author:
Lenny is a jack of all trades. Frequently to be found working as a carney. South in the winter. Coney Island in summer.