with apologies to William Carlos Williams
I forgot my jacket last night
so I wrapped my thoughts of you around me like a cloak.
Forgive me. It was cold and you were fluffy.
Have you forgotten how to hold me?
Your arms are always limp, and you are distant
Like broken seatbelts in a foreign car.
I was trying to kiss you
But your lips were smiling like razors
And your eyes were exploding like sky puddles.
If I stepped on your foot
Would your knuckles turn white
Like the marshmallows I stole from your hot cocoa?
When you pushed me away,
The night froze like a million bumblebees suddenly silenced,
Cracking as if tossed in liquid nitrogen.
I searched all over for you
But you vanished, fast like a sweepstakes prize,
And the travel agents only had one-way tickets to Zimbabwe.
Yet you still run the hamster wheel in my head
As I carelessly let you blindfold me with ferrets
Walking home in the soft and juicy September night.
| (c) Deanna Rubin 1998 | writing index |