the name she took in exile from her last husband
before she settled for Freedom, or Freedom Pleasures,
and opened herself to a life of loving. And why not?
Hadn't she spent fifty years of her life waiting on men,
waiting for men, being cheated on by men. Faithless
and betraying bastards. Here now on the island she could
elude all that, slip into a life of healing, find
the lonely men, the broken men, the men humbled
by their own arrogance and covetous ways,
their blind hunger to consume all things, men
combing the gulf's shore for redemption, how she
gathers them like castaways, men who need loving,
men who need her strong hands and soft skin,
men that did not jab at her breasts or yammer
about her hips or freckle-pooled flesh, men who
adore her totality, how she wades into the cold
pagan waves in her swimsuit and sombrero and
flip-flops, leads them back to her pelican-grove
beach shack, shapes sand candles with pools of wax,
designs seashell necklaces and conch chowder bowls,
sprinkles her bed with a starfish-netted quilt
and when she walks the mangrove trail she sings
to the red heron and roseate spoonbill,
she coddles babies at Winn Dixie, whistles
at dolphins, she makes you love loving again!
And then, necromancer!, at the bonfire
she spots another troubled man wandering
the crablegs and shells and jellied tidewrack.
She takes his hand and hugs his arm and you know
it's your time, watching the fire flicker off
everyone's laughing bodies, cold night descending,
smoke and sparks flying up to the stars,
waves sighing, you think why not?, one more time,
this time for real.
No comments:
Post a Comment