Sacrifice

"Come upstairs," he said.

"I think I won't," I said. The black llamas woven in a line around my cream white sweatercoat perked their heads, listening.

"Come up and see my etchings," he said.

I lowered my head, letting my hair fall so he wouldn't see my lips twitch. "You're good," I said. By the time I raised my eyes, we were both laughing. "All right. But just because you bought me a filet o' fish doesn't mean you own me."

He did a Groucho Marx duck walk to the building door and held it for me. "Mind if I smoke?" he asked, flicking imaginary ash. I walked in, and he added, "I should never have put that cigar in my pocket!"

He was a nice man. 

Above his bed, he kept a row of books on a home made shelf. I took one down. "You read Colette?" He did. 

He said, "You have beautiful eyes." People have always told me this, and yet, I blushed because of the way he said it.  It wasn't a line. When he looked at me, when he touched me, the familiarity stopped my words. I have looked at women like that. I have touched women like that, and when I did, I handed them something they could hurt me with.

I should have stopped things there, but I didn't. I let him gently undress me, and he thought that made me naked. 

"I think I'm falling in love with you," he said, and I tightened my arms around him, my skin against his skin, my hand at the back of his head as if I were holding a baby, my cheek on his hair. I didn't want him to see my eyes. I hoped he would mistake the catch in my breathing for the passing of that phantom I had tried too many times to summon.

Over his shoulder, I saw my sweater folded neatly over the desk chair. The llamas were woven facing west, they can never know east. Beyond them, not far, his door and its small gold handle. Beyond that, the dark stairs and the noisy confusing street.

He looked up. "What's wrong?" I could have said, what's wrong is that I have lied every minute of my life, and been rewarded for it. What's wrong is that I have sat quietly, cutting out my own heart as if it were needlework.

"I have to go," I told him, escaping, standing, gathering my clothes. 

He wanted to know if he had done something, or hurt me. He apologized, not knowing for what. He was nothing but a sweet, beautiful man, and I have thought of him often. I hope that, right now, he is some woman's love.

I ran down the stairs, into the street, and stood there out of breath. I never tried to be with a man again. I have tried not to hurt anybody, like that, again,

But I look at women,
I touch women,
And give them my heart.
If, the next time, mine is the sacrifice,
At least I can scream my joy and my pain in my own language.
_______

photograph by Margaret Bednar. For Real Toads Sunday Challenge.

Tiger On A Chain

There were two of you--
you,
another woman,
and your brother the defective, mumbling and beloved by you.

There were two of you--
a Nordic blonde and you, strawberry cherry curling red around my dreams.
All the while, your brother wandered,
bashing his head against walls and counting the ceiling tiles.

There were two of you--
and two is one too many.
I knew I loved you best, as close as my next breath,
but I didn't say it in time, and you were gone;
leaving only your brother with his tiger on a chain.

There was only one of you--
back to the snows went the interloper,
carrying a reindeer rack for a trophy.
The longer since you left,
the more I suffered, orbiting your batshit crazy brother
begging him to tell me how I could find you.

I never missed anyone so much,
never regretted anything so sharply, like nails through the heart.
Your brother was my only hope,
busy making math out of heaps of junked cars,
his tiger forgotten and loose, threatening.

Imagine my surprise when I woke up.
Imagine my incredulity when I realized that I never even knew you,
That my penance and my passion were nothing more than vapor.

Imagine the numbering and secret sense in loony delusion.
Imagine me awake now, rocking and twisting my hair,
Staring hard into the golden eyes of a killer, and wondering where you've gone.
______

For Marian's music prompt at Real Toads. The song "You'll Lose A Good Thing" was in my head all day yesterday, and last night I had this dream.

Girl Detective

Girl Detective is a good old fashioned gumshoe.
She's worth it at twice the price.
Photographs have been sent to your wife.

It's the double cross, bait and switch, better luck next life.
It's the old switcheroo.
Why the long face, whatsamatta you?

She's got the juice, she's got the sass.
And if she wants, she punk yo ass.
Hands off the trench coat, jack, if you know what's healthy.

Girl Detective does evidence creatively.
And after her labors have come to pass,
See you in the funny papers. Pray for you at Mass.

Girl detective got the goods on your bad acts.
Let her tell you how things are.
You can start by washing her car.

Clothes may make the man, but
Dark glasses make the girl.
She does it for the love, never for the money.
Remember,
When she's good she's very good,
But when she's bad, 

well,

that's confidential, honey!
______

for Flipside's word list #11

 
 
 

Digital

Hands cannot be made of water,
And yet water holds ships, islands, continents.

Hands cannot be made of fire,
And yet fire has fingers and throws what it has burnt into the air.

Hands are angels sent by whichever evil or fine masters they belong to.
Hands are mute, and yet say what words cannot.
_____

teh deep, I haz it.

for G Man's Friday 55.

Rosary

I have a rosary made of birds.
I have an ache made of your absence.

When I am praying, the birds stay with me. Stars replace them.
This is my arrangement with the sky at sunset.

Sometimes passing trucks sing the street; other times footsteps.
Sometimes God laughs; other times She is silent.

Holding birds in one's hands is holy.
My hands know your name, and the braille of my body in its longing.

I always say the same prayer, to be nearer to you.
I have a rosary made of birds.
_______

 

Sustenance

The thing is,
I have paws the size of frying pans.
When I lived in Paris, and frequented the local cafes,
I often found myself stopped, mid-poem,
Overcome with an electric, instinctual desire
To pounce upon the odd slow waiter
And devour him.

Service became even worse.

Gendarmes questioned me, but carefully,
From behind large heavy wooden desks.
Tired of this treatment,
And filled with a terrible ennui,
I went home to my garret, threw away my dainty white gloves,
Put on my crimson scarf and went to buy a train ticket.

How was I to know that you would be there, at the station?
You always had small, strong hands,
Sure words,
And a way of leaving me as undone as a dropped parfait.
Porters and passengers smiled in passing
To see us, meant for each other, in transit, in love.

There is nothing else, no study in oils,
No natural scene,
More heart-catching than you, becoming naked in a slant of sun.
There is no fountain,
No creamy frosted trifle being passed on a plate,
As familiar with the feeling of eager surrender-in-motion as I was,
That day.

The thing is,
Even under the fingertip touch of such a bold and female knight as you,
I could not keep the muscles under my fur from waking;
I could not sheath my claws,
Nor deny my nature forever.

I hadn't meant to kill the landlord,

But he knocked on our rented cottage door just as you were at my throat
The way I loved for you to be,
And before I knew it,
He was shreds and bones.

Now, I live high in the steep rocks, where no trees grow.
The snow is my cape;
My heart hides deep, beating slow.
My days are long periods of remembering and regret,
A little writing,
And occasional furious bursts of blood and feast.

Please forgive me, Darling,
For not being able to sustain paradise.
It was there,
In your body,
In your deep-water eyes,
And in the things you said, that stay with me still.

Isolation is my natural way. I've made peace with it,
But I never forget you, because
Even those alone
Need sustenance.
_______

for Flipside's word list 10, Hannah's Transforming Fridays #2, and Real Toads Open Link Monday

 

The Stoned Cheerleader

The stoned cheerleader has chosen her activity unwisely.
Capricorns who carry pom-poms display a classic symptomology--
Clawing of the hands and digits,
Homicidal ideation,
And digestive upset.

Her cheers are different, and to some, mystifying or offensive.
Two, four, six, eight!
Who do we
tol-er-ate?
Homeville! Homeville! yeahhh!

or

Three, four, five, six!
Pencil necks and limp dicks!
Homeville High,
Score this time!

She is removed from the squad, and in short order, from the school,
After she assaults the Math Club with a fire extinguisher stolen from the hall.

Is there no sanctuary for the stoned cheerleader?
No tonic for her malaise?

The Accord of 1519
Outlines an agreed-upon series of steps for the banishing of witches.
Learned men hand down a list of crimes punishable under their aegis:
Intoxication.
Divination.
Conjuring.
Promiscuity,
and "The utterance of profane or unwholesome cheers, such as may cause others to stray from proper teaching."

On the evening of Graduation Day,
The Homeville town fathers arrest and try the stoned cheerleader,
After offering her the chance to wear long dresses, speak mildly, and attend Wednesday night bible study.
These kindnesses are met with hostility
And a suggestion that the mayor and aldermen should form a circle jerk and yank each other cross-eyed.

The unfortunate cheerleader is burnt,
The smoke from her body curling straight down to the devil.
The mayor is re-elected,
And the following year, Homeville High goes 9-1
Inspired by the new head cheerleader,
A Pisces.
_______

for Flipside's word list 9

stay tuned next time, when we find out why Scorpios make poor nuns!