When I was looking the other way,
a beautiful woman slid next to me at the counter
and asked if I wanted all my pain erased.
Her eyes looked like crocheted starlight
and in all my years I’d never seen such blue.
She was my age, perhaps, but she wore her gown
like a young model. On her fingers were rubies
and garnets that sparkled me hypnotized.

She placed her hand on mine,
such wrinkled silk,
and said she’d have to kiss me.
So over a half coup of coffee and a bran muffin,
her face neared mine and I felt her lips, soft
as a rose petal.

Then I felt electrical shocks
-You seem so familiar -
all through me, from my scalp to my toes.
“I don’t want to die in the war,” I think
I mumbled and she shook her head no.

“Gertrude?” I looked around.
“I’m not Gertrude,” she said in my ear.

She straightened my shirt collar
and stood up, so shimmering in…what material?

“I took it,” she said, touching my temple.
“It’ll be easier this way.”

And then I saw a family of ten to fifteen
standing by the revolving door, looking
sad and forelorn.
One said, defeated, “all right. Let’s take him in.”
And they approached.

01/15/2006

Posted on 01/15/2006
Copyright © 2024 Lisa Marie Brodsky