she II

On one of the summer camping trips, I had a rather me moment - we were lying around, talking in our sleeping bags. The campfire embers were long gone. But one of my friends had an aura that I had to try and capture, so I ended up in Tiny Car, scribbling the first draft by the dome light in my car.

I met this girl
with Ving Rhames eyes
see
he's the archetype of bad-ass
at that level of incredible
Zeus is a nobody
you're Mount Olympus personified
you can't really get mad
so much as reshape a gigantic smile
watch Pulp Fiction
even with the gimp
his eyes give him away
they're always laughing
I'd seen those eyes once already
but
it was a glowing green forest sprite
imagine that level of self-confidence, self-control
make it feminine
Blackberry-sized
you've got the tiniest, floating Triceratops
wrapped in a Tinkerbell suit
with manicured, slender fingers
the capacity to flatten Scandinavian forests
and the self-satisfaction
to have not even tried
the simple delicate flick
required
I found her
floating in mid-air
caught in a moment
a half-smile on her face
wings in the middle of a heartbeat
and such serene eyes
you know those fingers
could turn you to dust
the king of the jungle
sits brazen, with few predators
the queen of the forest
has the sly implacability
that comes from having none
she doesn't go medieval
she surpasses Hiroshima
at that point
you are a cloud
she never comes down
you can see it
in her Ving Rhames eyes
she has a Cheshire cat grin
and the James Brown version of funk
that belongs to 20 something women
the trademark of the international traveler
the small, tasteful, silver nose ring
a reply
to Cheshire Cat's question
“where are you going?”
the obvious answer
her natural habitat
sunshine, smiles, stories, somewhere abroad
where days start
with afternoon cookouts
on Mediterranean apartment rooftops
sun drenched, full of tomatoes and wine
they run through midnight bar crawls
dancing on a boat
that floats from bar to bar
on a river somewhere in the Czech Republic
and races to the train
to catch deep desert sunrises
this
is where she's going
all in the same orange sundress
simple
sweaty
artfully, perfectly confident
if the Cheshire cat dare ask
how will you know when you get there
she'll reply
that's hardly the point
and less than half than that
in the getting there