Dear Boy
First summer night -- go.
Blow off the dust
(avoid the water-filled jar).
Undress the typewriter,
anticipating the soon-sound of ink smacking paper.
Light the sickly-sweet-smelling candle, finally;
ignite more than just your senses.
Read to me, Dear Boy,
from my grandfather’s chair.
Search for the gems of my former self;
her discoveries, her gold,
adopted into the giant ocean of the self,
the woman you now know.
“I wish I knew...” you say with a shrug, “where it was.”
Don’t we all? I reply silently.
“A poem just for you. -- For me too.”
Ain’t nothing just for me anymore,
not even an old, washed-out jar of peanut butter
reincarnated as your favorite water glass,
smugly purposeful in its new life --
"That is to say, death," you read,
"That is to say, life."
Your eye catches mine.
"Crazy Neruda," you say.
Crazy Dear Boy.
“Break through the ideas they’ve loaded on us
and you’re free.”
Free.
Free, like a wild-haired dandelion in the green wet earth,
lifting her face to embrace bare summer feet;
like my heart beating to the rhythm of your breath
and the throb of your cock
as you take me on the balcony, right there in front of all the neighbors.
Free like dreams of flying and falling endlessly
into that ocean of the mind born of young girls and old souls,
and electric words on a page delivering secret messages to our nest tonight,
and the cry of a solo saxophone, weeping my life story
from our beloved record player.
Yes. That kind of Free.
Copyright 2017 by Ali Skye Bennet. No portion may be reproduced without permission from the author.