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A pair of white jeans
vibrant in the washer
machine on heavy—
the God of bleach
to soak the soil;
black jeans thrown in
like an accident
of the black hole
in the constellation
swallowing the sun
and creation,
and the mixture
never comes together.
A flay of kicks, hips
and chins tumbling, sliding
shoulders like soldiers
hiding in debris
of camouflage and war,
they rumble, one
amongst the other—
until another pair of black jeans
jumps in frayed and torn,
a butterfly knife slips out
the back pocket,
a wallet taken in fear
with the name Levi Strauss
stamped to the signature.
White jeans on its knees,
begging to spare the life,
handing over loose change
to a pair of clothesline hung
bowlegged Wranglers.
Blots of black dye bled through,
bleach that always eats a world
of color, race and innocence.
The stinging burn of skin
and cotton,
genes that carry through
the pendulum of denim.
And we slip on our jeans
from a warm tumble-dry
battered dryer, the colors
dispersed into grey clouds.
The black-white tangles
come together into
a smear of newspaper ink;
and the legs of history
repeats the sequel,
walking away equal.
I remember his belt
mostly,
in length half-tall than I—
a boa constrictor bite
leather dryrot, cracked
black dye, fit tight
around his fat waistline.
It was in symbolic to his
own rage and fit—
and when I smiled wrong
it would come flung loose
from his pant loops.
And should I smile right
well, then I would have
been prepared to take
another beating, a crack
across arms, hands
wherever unable to protect
and the ass especially,
I want you to remember
the pain every time you sit
he would say.
But what I remember most
his pant unbuttoned, fly down
after a fierce beating—
smell of sweat and old spice
beer belly out, a drunken man
trying to hold his life together
with a wife that sat somewhere
in the dark,
come unloose and falling
somewhere in the dark.
Anthony Liccione lives in Texas with his wife and two children. He has three collections of poetry: Heaven's Shadow (Foothills Publishing), Parched and Colorless (The Moon Publishing) and Back Words and Forward (Publish America). His forth book, Please Pass Me, the Blood & Butter is now available through Lulu Press.