In The Eggshell Of My Mind

In the eggshell of my mind,
we had stolen this other chick's car--
one that went to the automobile graveyard decades ago.

I was driving.
It was a stick-shift.
We could see a small strip of pavement through the floorboards,
as blurred as we were, stoned immaculate.

No one ever did for a tee shirt what you did for that one.
it isn't that you were so voluptuous--
no, you were as you are now, slender as an umbrella handle;
but we were young,
and you were perfect.

Your breasts were the size of large oranges--
I knew this because I had studied them like scripture
only the night before,
and with the urgency of the starving.

All this while--
all the time we were driving, 
falling off the sides of bridges, 
lips together like a canning seal--

I was sleeping,
softly breathing the night in,
and then out again,
filling it, Goddess-like, with the stars that are us--
or, at least,
as I imagine us, now.

Just before dawn,
I was arrested.
They wanted to know about your hair,
and whether its blackness could be used to feather cosmonauts
as they dance, weightless, like we do.

They said to show them my hands,
and when I showed them my hands,
fields bloomed and the elk ate these blooms.
They were astonished,
but held me all the same.

Would you hold me, all the same, 
you with your Gypsy blood and your hands that hold a bottle
or a crucifix
with the same sure confidence and 
the smirk you save for holy moments?

They will kill me, 
these police with their reports;
or they will wake me,
and what will be the difference?

You and I will be older, 
gone down the river of time.
Look at all our mistakes!
I love them. I do. Better than any of the things we thought were important.

I wish these fools would let me go back to sleep, or just make me disappear
the way they are known for doing.
I won't tell them about your hair,
no matter what they try.
I won't tell them that my hands knew the little bumps that rose
around your nipples
in the afternoon
when responsible people were sober, and someplace else.

I won't tell them that I loved you,
and love you still.
There are some dreams that are the more beautiful for not being tangible.
Take a letter,
though you are not here;
take my heart,
though yours was never really mine.
Take all the gorgeous things I dream,
before they bash my brains in.
It is the least you can do
for the sake of our souls lost in the ether
like Fox and Carrot-Top.
_______

Note: Fox and Carrot-Top (or Lisa and Ryzhik) were the "Soviet Space Dogs" who made a sub-orbital flight in the summer of 1951.

"stoned immaculate" is from "Texas Radio & The Big Beat" by The Doors.

This is for Izy's Out Of Standard at Real Toads. She says to take three words from a job we hated, and use them in a poem that is NOT about that job. I once worked at a specialty grocery store, many years ago. My words are eggshell, oranges and canning. I might add that I showed up for work drunk as a seaside whore one day, and so my words could also be stoned, bottle and mistakes.