November  2001

Whimsy Hikes the Volcano

  

Alone in cavernous dark except for prime time aqua-blue,

That living room glimmer where you watch your favorite

Stroke film actress dressed to the nines In her Bo-Peep

Dominatrix suit, pretending she Is not an alien abductress 

 

You find you have nothing to turn you on except 

Yourself and the mother ship machinery of thought.

 

Bo-Peep in the actual flesh, however, has a more

Refined agenda as she packs her smallness into

One red bag and skirts along the pyroclastic flows

Of risky businesses and doughnut holes of chaos.

 

She hikes down her own personal snow capped peak, 

Major blows unpredictable, mudslides commonplace.

 

If only the two of you could really meet by accident 

In an alcove at the local Chalet Volcanique Lounge

Where you learn that you are just the welcome relief

She deserves after a busy day of needy execs and

Boy-toy exaggerations, after the biker blowhards and

Desperate old men, yes you, a cool drink. You game?

 

At first you fear her life experience, and her

Knowledge, so much mind-tingling technique!

You almost want to run out the door with your

 

Shabby encounter memoirs, flop-sweat performances, 

Whimsical child’s-play requests…

You wouldn’t dare ask a professional to do that!  Would you?

 

That is, until you discover that she too, always

Wanted to go naked through the wrong doorway.

Risk meeting another you, her childhood dream.

Just the two of you alone together for the first time

In a connecting room or warm empty bathroom,

Where you can explore your puberty emerging.

 

Youth re-imagined in a fanciful mood, fleshed out by mutual consent.

Yes, you almost thought you knew her, touched her unexplored soul,

Her spiritual sense, those tile bathroom echoes

still haunting your heart.