My lover burns for things I can not give -- Japanese lanterns of red and gold, small silver bells draped
across my belly to ring when I come, a loft filled with art, a sweet baby child, the secret to my heart.
But there are stories too dark to be told, and too many doors unlocked by keys that were not gold.
Do you remember, the wise woman says, that your legs are the ring that circles your love, pulls him down and in and back around, completing the wheel of sex and love and mysteries unbound. Be
still and listen, she says, and you will know which way to go.
Once I had a lover who called me blue. He played the guitar and thought deeply and had small baby children of his own. He wore black gloves and had fingers that knew exactly what to do, but he was too slow for a woman who wraps the tendrils of her heart around a man's shoes and looks for a blanket of stars to appear before she can determine if anything is true.
There is a pattern to things, my lover says, and we must learn to repeat the best parts and let the rest be. There is a pattern to things, I respond, but we only see the things we want to see.
For years I had a lover near the ocean who would phone me promptly at nine in the morning and make love to me.
I never made an appointment before ten. He called me baby until I thought that was my name.
Sometimes I would stare out the window while he told me what to do, watching birds, rain, snow, falling leaves
from the aspen tree, anything but myself, ignoring the fact that I was lying on the pale carpet lifting my skirt to
touch myself while the rest of the world went off to work. I would listen to his words, spread your legs baby,
and get shy, hear them
and imagine I was one of the green and gold butterflies that sometimes landed on the aspen leaves up high. I did everything he said to do until my dreams began to rise and lift me up to the sky with them. I began to live fully in my imagination because I knew he was there in the room with me, his weight pressing into me from above, his hands under my skirt, spread your legs baby, his lips on mine, and the day would go dizzy and wild until I was sure that mirrors would kiss me back if I looked into them because I was so hopelessly in love.
There were silver bells draped in every corner of the sky when I rested at last on the shore of his body. But my nine o-clock lover who was going to love me and keep me safe for all of our lives quickly got lost in the mist of reality and I was left with the vision of butterflies and green lace ribbons and barely enough hope to survive.
Be still and listen and you will know which way to go.
The man at the Riviera called me annie and never even knew my real name. I thought that was sexy, like a little girl playing dress-up in her gypsy clothes, pretending to be anyone but herself. He pulled me up on my tiptoes with his fist in my hair so I could kiss his lips and he gave me a collar and tried to own me, but he forgot to read my words and then I was free.
Baby, blue, annie, sweetheart, these are not names that are true.
A lack of passion makes you small, the wise woman says. Your eyes must become open to the wild purple orchids that have the power to pull you down below. Be still and listen and you will know which way to go. There is someone waiting and watching in your hidden corner. In the crook of his body you will find your religion, and you will pray in a way that removes all the memories, pray until you forget your own name, worship until the glittering dark is all that you know, and the night will be filled with red, and with gold.
The Poet's Companion - by Kim Addonizio and Dorianne Laux