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Exit
Strategy
Elaine
took me to her German psychic,
as expected, she saw
everything.
Our bad days and our glories.
The
history of our times and species;
we have been together
for
generations.
Realizing how long I have been with Elaine
made me feel
tired – I didn’t realize we’d been
working
things out for over 400 years.
That’s a long time to
accommodate a sentient being,
I don’t care what form I
was in; me as:
Her cat
Her dog
Her sister
Her
butler
Her mother
Her hair stylist
Gerta saw it all
against her inner astral cineplex.
I didn’t
know I was once a charming pistol packing pescalero
a handsome
Mexican bandit who charmed Elaine
(in an earlier even more
succulent form)
to indulge my desires.
Irresistible
under a vast pecan tree.
My sombrero tossed casually to the
side
The Milky Way strung over our heads.
I pick the
flower she willingly offers me.
We melt into the warm night –
two sentient beings
as happy as two sentient beings could ever
be.
She, the sheriff’s daughter
virgin,
sixteen, flawless
filled with secret flames
Me,
hanging from a pecan tree
limp, twitching,
forlorn
looking a bit bewildered
My sombrero tossed hurriedly to the side
Too
many lives to hold in one small boat.
Yet on we sail, east to
paradise
fighting our way toward enlightenment,
the only
exit strategy
for two weary souls.
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Fictions
You
will love me forever, until you became
bored with
predictability and leave me
for a man who plays board games
and
grows the best pot you ever smoked
After
being beaten
my belief in mother love falters
only eleven
years old
and exhausted by her love
I simply
forgive
Even animals must flee when
frightened
Falling out of mind
into life
they
are orphans
Mysteries of mind leaving me
silent
as I await further direction
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Ideas
of Grace
Moments
of desolation when life and love collide
drowning us beneath
the weight of their inevitability
You pause and look
back at me as if I were cancer
How can this be?
Why is this
happening?
Who do you think you are?
Isn’t history
the antidote for bad judgment?
Fidelity is so fluid
these days
So much expected in return
I
tell you about my parents
My long suffering mother
My
long silent father
Married 58 years until death
“Those
were days of denial, when relationship
was abduction and
silence a woman’s ransom.”
I don’t
argue I hide my point of view
How
could you understand
there is glory in surrender
if
made for harmony
Or that the liberation of the
blind
is conceived in a bed of forgiveness
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Saks
Fifth Avenue
Time
moves so slowly as we wait for
our loved ones to exit the
dressing room
- again.
Exotic birds parade before
us
Tight fitting
Low riding
Up lifting
Miracle bras
Moving in synchronous motion
from rack to
stack.
My male comrades and I
warm the
bench.
We’re the second stringers.
Shoes
Accessories
Lingerie,
Lipstick
Eye shadow.
You exit a
new woman.
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Right
Foot into Wings
My
worst curse - immobility.
Crutches and no car for six
weeks.
The basement writing room has
become a sensory
deprivation chamber.
Even my pain medication haunts
me -
midgets in white doctors’ jackets chasing
me
with whips offering me more pills.
All I can do is
- hop hop hop.
“You needed this.” Elaine
tells me.
“A divine light will appear, a voice in
the
night, an angel will come, you’ll be
forever changed.
You want to change
don’t you? You could use a
little changing
you know. Think transubstantiation’s
easy?
Huh? Do you? How about making the move
from
caterpillar to butterfly? Think that’s
so easy? Stop
complaining and be glad
you have one good foot.”
No
pity down here in the deprivation chamber.
Shut up and take it
like a man.
Life’s a trash can – deal with
it.
Alone in the basement – hop hop
hop.
Entertaining pain medication dwarfs – hop hop
hop.
Writing fiction only a fleeting idea – hop hop
hop.
Six weeks until transubstantiation lift
off.
Fly to Mexico amidst clouds of Monarchs.
Butterfly wings better then any right foot.
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My
Cat's Human
(November
21, 2006)
I would tell my daughters, “That’s
the luckiest cat in the world;
she’s so dumb she’d
die if she ever stepped foot out the door.”
I
guess even she knew that the day I left the front door open by
mistake,
freedom beckoned as she stared out into the wild
world knowing it wasn’t for her.
I didn’t
pet her; she didn’t like to be petted. I freshened her
water.
My daughters were always too busy to do it. She was my
daughters’ cat.
No one brushed her dreadlocks;
the matted clumps that grew worse
as she aged, slowed down,
and slept more. So I did.
I grew up on a mink farm.
I don’t love animals. What are they good for except
to
eat and wear?
She’d sit next to my desk as I’d
write, and stare, and talk to no one. She’d sleep
outside
my bedroom waiting for me to wake up; scratching the door if I
was late.
She didn’t get smarter with time.
After thirteen years she was still just a dumb cat.
Well,
animals are all pretty dumb aren’t they?
Yesterday
she didn’t get up from the place where she’d plant
herself until I got home;
the spot at the top of the steps
where she seemed to be glued as if she were waiting for
someone
to come in the front door.
When I called
Elaine to say the Vet had just put Princess down, I made a joke
about
her corny name; and started to weep. That was when
I realized she’d made me her human.
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