Reanimated Lavender Granola Switchblade Nun rides again.

Saturday, April 8, 2023

My Detective

 

When a detective falls in love, he does not know who to bill for expenses--
everything is up in the air. 

At a mixer for suspects, he invites me to dance via loudspeaker.
Radiant in my white dress, I resemble a snowy owl
even down to my carefully bandaged hand which he takes without hesitation.
I whisper in his ear:

I am Leon Czolgosz. 
Your heart is the President of the United States of America. 
We are dancing in Buffalo, city by the Niagara. 
My detective, of course, falls hard.

The next time we meet, I wait for him in the bullpen at the police station.
They know him there.
They hire cellists. 
He confesses his deepest fantasy to me:

I want to speak words of love to you
via telephone
with our hands naked and separated only by the safety glass.
I want the call recorded
and broadcast to wild lovers around the globe. 

Shortly after, we are married. I wear my favorite bearskin robe.
My small black cubs frolick nearby, 
climbing the pews and then tumbling gaily down again.
My detective is resplendent in his tuxedo. 
The hired band plays Funiculi Funicula.
I snarl when my detective gets too close to the cubs, and this inflames him.

At last, we lie in bed together, like busy machines come to rest.
I am wearing nothing but the revolver-shaped earrings he has given me.
My detective wears a felt fedora
and a look of smug adoration like a daredevil over the falls in a barrel. 
I am The Queen of the Mist,
suspected in various thieveries, check kiting, and jaywalking.

Our love is an aviary
where birds wheel above the thundering water like intelligent confetti. 
Look in your mailbox, I tell my detective.
I have left you a valentine and an Easter egg. 
He asks if, after all, I am his mystery client.
I am innocent. 
Love is a marvelous thing, a joyful thing. My love is happy now, laughing.
_______

For Word Garden Word List--Zachary Schomburg.

Music: Angelo De Pippa Funiculi Funicula




11 comments:

  1. This is exuberantly entertaining. Smiled all the way through at your cleverness. I love the birds "like intelligent confetti". And the tumbling cubs. A delight to read. I was happy, too, at the end.

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  2. What a ride! Bazaar to the max. A great write, Shay.

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  3. This is so great I don't know where to begin. Our loves always thus - investigations, arrests, sleuthing, mysteries. Shay, are the Inspector Gadget of words. This: "where birds wheel above the thundering water like intelligent confetti"

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    1. "Shay is the Inspector Gadget of love poems."

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  4. I second what Qbit said! No one writes of love as brilliant as you Shay and "intelligent confetti", well I love it!!!!! Hoppy Easter my friend!

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  5. What a delight to read. There is an old folk song about the assassination of McKinley that I used to sing back in my guitar-strumming hippie days; the chorus ran "From Buffalo/to Washington.." and I instantly thought of it here. I love the way you have worked in that image and history into a very triumphantly bizarre love poem that feeds the senses and the soul with the essence of love and the odd vagaries which make up personality and life itself. The opening line is just the perfect hook, and I love the way the second through sixth stanzas mix the serious and the surreal with the delicately comic, ending in that final pure lyric soar. Just a stunning, gorgeous, amazing *insert superlative of choice* poem, Shay. Brava!

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  6. Wonderful. Love "intelligent confetti" and the image of the bear cubs tumbling about on the pews. Such an enjoyable read!

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  7. I can relate to this ! ... I'm in my tuxedo too =^x^= tee..heh

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  8. You are in a league of your own, Shay. You inspire me to be a better poet. And thank you for the welcome back. It's good to be back and to read you again!

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  9. Best opening line ever! And I love everything that follows

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