Do you remember when we roamed that night with Merlin?
He led us on a merry chase, his band of gypsy thieves.
Drunk on midnight and Hill Country air
we crept from grove to grove, cavorting inside shadows.
Teeth glittering, eyes narrowing to slits.
Ruthless hyenas, we sang and laughed and screeched.
Starlight giggled us while people tried to sleep.
We skittered through their campfires, sanctified by ashes.
They cursed us as we passed.
I fell into a hammock slung from wild oak.
Obscene and rhythmic pulsing thrust my pelvis towards my lips.
Pure poetry of badness from the center of the blues.
Ordained right then the Queen of Sleaze.
I was proud and fat and full.
We each in our own way made love to the night
audacious as the wild space where Merlin waved his wand.
Suffering
We long to lift the weight from our beloved.
We long to see them smile and hear lightness in their step.
We long to ease them with a word, a look, a touch upon the shoulder.
Sometimes the weight must be. It leaves no space for me.
It is theirs to feel,
endure,
befriend.
At any moment you may return.
I try to let you take your time.
GRETCHEN
Today Gretchen’s hair is pulled into a taut ponytail.
She has sprouted elfin ears since last I saw her.
Perky lobes reach into points buffed soft.
Her mouth moves in precision,
eliciting consonants etched in silver.
High clavicles betray the grace of all true dancers.
She lives mostly in this world,
but sometimes flees to forests
where fat mossy trunks sprawl amiably.
There she fans translucent wings
sequined in morning dew
and quivering with the thrushes’ song.
Once I saw her flash into a black witch moth,
wings thrashing, eyes piercing,
casting evil out of paradise.
Today, she drives a red car, travels with an aging border collie,
her back seat inexplicably full of brightly colored plastic pails.
SEA LIONS
Away from the Outer Mission, China Town, the Wharf,
away from scents of seafood frying, baking, broiling, dying,
out past civilized streets and yards tumbling ivy,
away from novelty shops with movie posters,
touristy junk, buskers hoarse singing,
boisterous barkers, sex shows, greasy noodles, egg fu yung,
beyond fumes of buses and cars,
after fog banks roll away
and bones begin to warm,
I know where to go.
The edge of the city,
the edge of the sea,
where seagulls scream and spire
over military towers
and remains of public baths.
Wild and alone,
a midwest girl on foreign soil,
where agitated ghosts whisper
of scheming, gambling, grabbing gold,
ruthless fires, pounding iron, rope burned hands,
senseless murders, treason, rapture, splendour,
of love so ripe, so rich, so rotten
it split and spilt,
still swelling symphonies in salty air.
Littered paths
where whiskey bottles, beer cans,
ripped blue jeans, Wrigley’s wrappers,
muddened caps, frisbees tossed and lost,
and stogies are strewn like Hansel’s crumbs.
My feet follow up and down,
under scraggly bushes,
duck and wind to the very end.
Hear them out there,
lolling about on barnacled rocks.
Slapped by icy waves they laugh,
filling me with jealousy.
What I would give to swim the sea
and play among them.
I know I must track myself back.
Back to trolleys,
up streets impossibly steep,
a jumble of hope and fear
and reckless daring,
and somehow more myself again.
©2015 Mariénne Kreitlow
HOTEL BED
This hotel bed is a mile wide,
encased in sheets of white, a perfect pouffy comforter,
pillows of polyester down.
I stretch my limbs all the way out, but still can’t touch you.
Remember when we used to spoon and sleep
like two sardines, oiled and snug?
I would place my heart inside of yours
to feel my love, fan it open, raise some heat.
Over the years I grew to love you without trying,
like breath falling in and out, effortless as springtime rain.
Tonight we sleep above city lights
but tomorrow we shall
tangle in tangerine flannel
with hodge podge pillows heaped about.
In a bed made of twisted cedar limbs.
I will put my head on your left shoulder.
(That place that belongs to only me.)
We will whisper absurdities.
Laugh and sigh and settle in.
Then I’ll shut the light.
Give you my back for the night.
Just the right amount
of closeness
and space between.
©2015 Mariénne Kreitlow