Embrace Noir Analysis

I go back to the scene where the two men embrace

& grapple a handgun at stomach level between them.



They jerk around the apartment like that

holding on to each other, their cheeks



almost touching. One is shirtless, the other

wears a suit, the one in the suit came in through a window



to steal documents or diamonds, it doesn't matter anymore

which, what's important is he was found



& someone pulled a gun, and now they are holding on,

awkwardly dancing through the room, upending



a table of small framed photographs. A chair

topples, Sinatra's band punches the air with horns, I



lean forward, into the screen, they are eye-to-eye,

as stiff as my brother & me when we attempt



to hug. Soon, the gun fires and the music

quiets, the camera stops tracking and they



relax, shoulders drop, their jaws go slack

& we are all suspended in that perfect moment



when no one knows who took the bullet--

the earth spins below our feet, a blanket of swallows



changes direction suddenly above us, folding

into the rafters of a barn, and the two men



no longer struggle, they simply stand in their wreckage

propped in each other's arms.

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