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Verse Chorus Verse
By
Wayne H.W Wolfson
"I’m late, It’s been a busy day, your guardian angel is weeping."
She buzzed me in. It was so hot. I was worried that it was the heat causing me to make rash decisions.
The heat.
The heat and that damned red dress of hers. I couldn’t escape either, at least not today.
The heat, the heat both inside and out. No escape.
As I climbed the stairs I practiced my little speech. My hands in pockets, fingers nervously stroking pen and the odd piece of change that popped up.
She had been new in town. I mentally worked an eraser. No, my schedule had finally freed up.
It had been an acquaintance’s party, held at an ailing restaurant. Desire and fear of missing something surged up inside of me. Causing me to go, even though Mirella was bed bound with a migraine.
They were always the same, but imagining the possibilities was often enough to sustain me.
I sat with my drink. It was a large room, all corners. Her dress was the exact same color as the walls, the flowers in the vase on the bar with their heads bent in slumber.
We talked. I had started a poem, scratched on a cheated cocktail napkin. Taking the poem she wrote down her number, how to get to these stairs.
The whole thing could bite me on the ass. Mirella had been sick. I promised myself a good story from all of it, its finish. That seemed to make it all add up. Logic found hidden within inspiration.
Who was I kidding? Even the best story ever told was forgotten at dawn.
How long ago was it?
She was at the top of the stairs waiting. Although not going anywhere she was in a bathing suit, filled to its limit.
It was as if she and Mirella were in a fight and who ever was winning would take mass from the other.
Above the wobbly dresser, framed, was the napkin. Poem side showing. Some journal had published the poem, the check not being enough to cover the drinks that had originally rested on the napkin.
That had only been the first though, so many others.
Another lifetime ago, or so it seemed.
She undid my belt. I need a hair cut. We fucked hard, the way she liked to in afternoons.
We lay there. I knew what I’d be asked. It’s the same all the world over.
"What are you thinking?"
"Even when a lot is accomplished, the passage of time is always tinged with a bit of sadness"
This morning I had yawned during confession, a mark of sincerity. I yawned now, I had to get home. I hoped there was some ice made.
Nothing was settled and that’s what I had made. I quickly kissed her goodbye, but she still managed to get in a hint about a hat she had been wanting.
The stories kept coming. We kept making them, so all must be allowed.
I got home. She was sitting on the bed fanning her toes with a detective magazine.
Ten little pools of red reflecting the bare bulb that hung above. They looked like little unblinking eyes, almost like halos.
I hopped in the shower.
"Let’s grab some sandwiches, I have a headache."
Copyright ©
2003 Wayne H.W Wolfson
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