The Normal Lives of Good People

Her face is the Wrigley Building lit at night,
her eyes billboards, the ponderous

tilt and nod, the reverent. Somewhere, a starlet
lies murdered. A kiss can last an hour, while

her husband’s plebeian love crashes over her
in waves of monotone sentiment,

a disembodied voice that haunts her walk
through the impassive. Things must be handled slowly,

touched carefully, the objects larger than our hands,
her son’s composition notebook a Victorian novel,

the nightclub party the Nuremberg Trials,
while the starlet’s blood seeps into the carpet.

Something’s got to give. One day Chicago
will slip into the lake. When the edifice of her face

sinks to the table, everyone in Arnelo’s turns
to watch beauty part her lips.