Keep up your bright swords,
                      for the dew will rust them.
                                               —Othello

Is it written? Characters fleshed? Personalities
sufficiently warped wit keen as in, "Do I have
to give me up to be loved by you?" She in her apron
pattern of green artichoke cooks his goose
no longer raucous no longer on the wing.
He in for supper, "You don’t need to know
everything." though he doesn’t mean to hide;
He is just one way and the other.
Thus the setting, a kitchen, an African violet
in the window, but what leads us down the cause to effect?
Nothing like It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul.
They don’t know the story, the fuchsia silence between
them hangs like evening primrose, a purple blemish
interrupted by brief ejaculations: Time to eat;
pass the salt; need help with the dishes?