My Hero
Mimi
Wolske
All Rights Reserved
Every
Summer the oak leaf galls.
Every
Summer finds another chapter closing so that the Fall
of
one foot in front of the other brings you to me
and
the words I write that spell out my desire
also
spell out yours. Enraptured with the
text
of my unfinished poem,
tears bleeding through the sweat of life,
there
was something there for you
that
was more than an authoritarian's litany.
Okay,
so maybe I opened the windows;
but it was never from
desperation,
only
anticipation of you entering and
bringing
the seductive, ethereal lightning of Zeus.
Ten
o'clock at night, even eleven or—
when you awaken after falling asleep
with that laughable excuse
I've fallen and I can't get up—
the phone rings at midnight
in the forest of cacti. I hand you a
machete
to cut into the prick---ly
pear ...
we're parched and water is needed to
refresh dried lips.
Somewhere
it's an oldie playing on someone's radio:
Love me like a man;
believe
me when I tell you,
you
love me like a man,
as
sure as a man can,
and
I blues it out with Bonnie Raitt.
The dragon awakes.
Isn't
it words and thoughts that always wake the dragon? Suddenly,
flames!
Everywhere!
You
think I'm the flame thrower?
Yes,
I can see me as a Diana with my bow
and
lightning arrows of love and lust.
But,
no; it's not I.
I
am the one who puts ink to paper,
I
am the recorder of events and truths;
you
are the dream weaver of night tails
not
as an apocryphal of tales, you invent and invade my dreams,
creating
our lust, throwing me
to
the cabin of your love boat,
pushing
me flush against the wall,
every
ounce of my flesh rubbed—
I'm
between your rock and hard place.
Shut up!
What?
Coming
down from my ivory tower
I
laugh... You're a magician.
You
made the room spin.
I could only lie there and tell you I was once
the princess
in
that tower I called my room and waited
to
be taken by you.
You're
my hero.
Fine.
I'm the dragon setting you on fire;
I'm
the woman who made it—
I'm
the one inside your head.
We explode, volcanoes of white-hot desire.
Suddenly,
darkness.
Suddenly
darkness and the dirtiest thing on your mind,
darkness
and base thoughts from the abyss,
the
yellow-brick road to tomorrowland,
the
trumpet's blare, and
actions
déclassé.
We
managed to live
through
those heated moments of hurtful lies.
Destroyed;
right?
Not
just hidden under the floorboards; right?
Yes;
right.
Some things frighten even a dragon causing
her to
blow hot air.
No surprise it's all bread pudding
and
chasing my naked ass up the stairs,
through
all the rooms in my castle,
through
all the visions in your mind —
all
boy toy and sex slave.
Marked,
claimed, I become an abozzo,
like
the painting on the easel in my studio.
Past baby steps, past cartwheels and tackles, past
hysterics
past
asking daisies hoping they'd know,
but
never past fears or breathing salty water,
I
climb the tree and create a branch for two
that
the wind can't bend or scatter its leaves before they wither.
We
roll on the ground laughing
at the idea
of policing love.
How
rare it is, in this world, to find a friend,
a
true friend...
one
who becomes more.
There's life —there's living;
I've
seen pictures; I create art.
Words
might fall onto pages empty;
It's
your silence that strikes my heart.
So,
I write the next lines:
We
live ever after
in
our tabernacle with new rooms
painted
the color of trust and happiness.
(Never) The End
