I am a Hopi of the highway, an interstate warrior,

guided by massive utility kachinas,

abstract figures of steel

wielding huge outstretched arms

muscled with lightning,

generating enough power

to electrify themselves into gods.

 

Sing me a voodoo lullaby in a language now extinct.

Weave me a turban of whisky and promises.

Feed me hand-picked apricots

soaked in the sweet salt of Harlem.

In return

I will sculpt you a word

out of the faintest of moonlight.

One word,

carried on the shoulders of angels

not yet named by God.

I exhale your name,

push it out of my soul,

cup my hands around it quickly

to capture every pure note

that lays claim to your essence.

I feel the sounds evaporate

from between my fingers,

until there is only

an empty hollow between my palms,

the silence I created out of you.

You hand me a word, concrete, sharp,

heavy with the weight of meaning.

“Use your magic,” you say.

“Create something special and I promise to stay.”

I swallow the word, let it irritate my soul,

fester its essence deep in my mind.

No one is more surprised than I

when I cough up something viscous, unknown,

covered with the blood of my heart,

the skin of my life.

You wipe away all the superfluous mess,

reveal a pearl, tiny, flawed,

not worth the price I expected you to pay.

The keeper of my dreams has a limp and a xylophone,

a contorted, distorted, grizzled old man

who charges a fee of cheese enchiladas

before he relents

and coughs up the key.

I’m not really sure why I revealed this to you,

except that maybe, just maybe,

it explains quite a bit.

The last cello on earth shivers

as the bow pulls forth one final moan,

the melancholy mating call

of a string with no response.

Your mouth mumbles mambo, sensual sounds,

in some forgotten language, the dialect of dancers.

I try, but cannot match the hypnotic swivel of your lips,

unable to match the rhythm and follow your lead.

“What’s for breakfast?”

He calls from the bedroom, hunger chewing harsh edges around his question.

She flips the spatula.

“My heart, over easy.  I scrambled it yesterday.

But that didn’t work out so well.”

It was his nature to be a Philistine,

to throw his weight around

as if he were a giant among men,

casting a dark shadow

fed by ego and disdain.

Is it any wonder that his wife

snuck off to the base camp of his rivals,

handed a slingshot

to the slightest of challengers

and whispered, ever so softly:

“Hit the sweet spot between his eyes.”

If only you had known me

before I met you,

when I was someone else.