Together-Apart

They sat on a sofa for two, glasses half red with wine.
". . . to keep all heads straight . . ."
"For God's sake, " she whispered, closing her slim fingers in a fist, hitting him on the forearm.
"You've 'circled the wagons'?" he asked.
"I'm ready . . ."

"No others but ours have endured this wrenching 400-year jack hammer, warped hate-love, war-peace, work-play, building-destroying --"
"The ultimate extreme together-apart," she interjected.  "Bound by it . . ."
"-- startling, soothing, glorious for our separate identities . . ."

" . . . seemingly irreparably offended-defended to the total undoing, never again to compromise, to truly smile together . . . no matter the anti-black whites, the anti-white blacks, we all --"
" -- black and white," he cut in, "white and black, Southern-bred in our soul . . ."

". . . like no other people we flow in America The Great that all the world has known and knows . . . and you darling -- if I dare -- would tear it all for your beloved language-hair culture thing . . ."
"But if Free Will exists can we, you and I, my sweet -- I dare -- representing, have no final word -- even to the deliverance of our spirit . . . ?"