Poem #2,720 | Nina’s Gum

Nina played with such education
& grace
[her name a way to avoid
that disgrazia of night workings] –
a seamstress of exact notes
[over
bone-hard strokes] –
a singer of all
our deeper chords –
prayer-puller
in air –
Warren took her gum away
as that full auditorium drained –
A
book laid back-broken about how
he worked it into his life –
chewed
small to minuscule
[‘tween teeth]
but only by that capturer of song
as sweetly-met bites –
He snuck it
away & wrote his tome ‘bout how
that dried time for-ever mattered