Two Jacks
All ready, tailor-fit
suit blending down,
the colors as if
separates paired
just right.
Hair cut fresh
and tapered clean,
like the fit below.
Walking into
the arena feels
just a little too snug
but nothing like
his girl’s dress,
a slinking gloss
just to match him.
A far memory
shows a kid
13, Birmingham,
who can’t shake
from his nose
the burning smells,
from buildings long
bombed out.
The same smoke
somehow
still in his
long hair,
liked by some, but
far more, sending
dirty looks his way.
Those kind of blokes
always brought back
thoughts of
the one shoe pair
he’d share
with his brothers
he couldn’t stand,
always in
the same room.
This teen Jack
would walk the streets
thinking of how
he had nothing,
and what he could have
one day.
Matthew Sorrento is the co-editor of Becoming Nosferatu: Stories Inspired by Silent German Horror (BearManor Media) and teaches film and media studies at Rutgers University, Camden, NJ. His poetry and fiction have appeared in The Five-Two, The Ekphrastic Review, and Chamber Magazine, and he contributes nonfiction to Noir City, Nightmare Magazine, Film Quarterly, and other publications. He edits Film International Online and Retreats from Oblivion: The Journal of NoirCon and is editorial director of Channel Academic Publishing.
