©Will She Be There Tomorrow?
Mona Arizona,
November 2014
All Rights Reserved
We'd coffee-housed
six cups,
talking and laughing
and planning,
never knowing four
feet of
snow had suddenly descended.
As we parted,
her to her upstairs
loft,
me to find a cab
home,
she kissed my cheek
as a sister,
as a mother,
as a concerned
friend,
and I left. The
outside door clicked
closed behind me and
I took in a sight I
had never seen
before —an empty
city.
There was no sign
a human had ever
visited this
outlandish, white
place...
no cars,
no people,
certainly no taxis.
The grainy crunch of
too-thin shoes
on fresh, icy snow,
the warm, labored
breath of this
determined pedestrian, and
the soft expletives of
wonder
as each turn revealed
something new,
something refreshed,
something redefined,
were the only noises in
this silent city.
I had a long walk
ahead of me,
a walk across the ancient
heart of the city,
a walk I'd certainly
never experience again,
at least, not
unprepared for snow.
The wonders of the
newly naked city
took me away from my
direct route home.
Thankfully, it's
always warmer when it snows
and my spirited
walking made up for my lack
of gloves,
of hat,
of scarf,
as I kept tramping
and crepitating
on my northerly
route. I had
a good hour to think
about
curling under quilts
in my warm bed.
I came upon a park
only heard of,
never seen; a park
with the only
freshly-created-from-iced-snow
nude statue of a
woman
in an arresting pose.
She rested
on her right hip, her
only contact
with the pedestal she
had been placed on,
her shapely legs,
toes pointed,
her torso cocked
upwards,
her left arm held
straight out
along her line of
sight,
her fingers cupped as
if
she might be sighting
something or
holding (contemplating)
something invisible.
How delicately iced
with snow she was
along her length and
yet she lay
as if roughly thrown into
the garden.
My steps hurried me
to her as she
lay posed on her
hivernal emptiness,
delicately iced with
snow,
looking both serious
and coquettish
at the same time,
enticing me to touch
her strident,
out-thrust legs,
her tempting nates,
her deliciously
carved back,
with no one around to
officiously say
"No
touching!" I approached her,
reaching one bare
hand to her
no doubt frigid, icy flesh.
She looked cold lying
there in the snow,
impervious to my
reaching hand.
Did she look down at
it?
Suddenly, I was
embarrassed,
as though she had
read my mind
so easily; I looked
into her face.
Was it my
imagination?
Did she take my
ungloved hand?
Did she place it on
one of her high, pert breasts?
The tits of a young
woman.
The icy cold nipple
sculpted in
detumesence,
nevertheless, hard
against my palm.
It was a breast that
was more
than a handful, if an
honest man
would admit he had
held and weighed one.
She reminded me of
Aristide Maillol's
life-size bronzes of
nude women.
Did she laugh? Could
she read my mind?
Was it her taking my
hand lower,
down to the gentle
contours
of a young woman's
belly,
up onto the proud
haunch
of a woman unafraid of
work,
along the calf of a
woman
with the strength to
keep going,
down to the toes,
which I now saw
were splayed in
orgasmic bliss?
I was again drawn
back to her head
with its peaceful yet
puzzling expression.
Heaven help me! What
was I thinking?
That she was inviting
me to take her
here in this icy
garden.
Was she opening her
legs for me?
Was I to be her
lover?
Was that enigmatic hand grasping
an invisible cock
she sought
to pull into her wet
mouth? Well?
I must have looked
like a fish
out of water with my
mouth
opening and closing
as I looked
for an answer to her aggressive
questions
because, suddenly,
she was laughing
that rough, raspy
laugh of a woman
laid out in rapture
to torture men like me.
It was from that
sensual glissade
that I pulled my hand
away
and imagined every
foul word
louts and perverts
would say about her
tomorrow when they
saw her,
when they reached out
a hand,
when they touched
her,
when they stroked her
nudeness.
Was she a sweet,
innocent woman?
A woman who knew no
shame
in her naked body the
artist
assuredly did not
want sullied
with the lewdness of
men,
the blaming of
jealous women,
the fantasies of lonely
men like me?
Was she looking at me
again?
I must have
goldfished again ...
Was that her sigh of
goodbye?
