Signs
A dancing girl with freckles and a
sweet soft face and
brown hair and brown eyes.
Her face was very Kansas to me,
at the same time very Russian or something.
Just my type, I thought.
Those glasses really knocked me out.
The warm dark hair, the nose, the eyes,
the full, soft, tattooed
teardrop ass,
and her laughter
a chorus of bells.
When she walked in I told her,
"It's nice to see hipsters in Kansas."
(I had to say something)
"I'm not that hip," she floored me.
Later we danced and I touched her hips
and she touched my chest, and yes in her eyes,
she came back to my motel room later
and coiled with me lovely
all the long wild night of Oz.
She had a tattoo in front, too
just above the lush dark bush like an
advertising flourish.
Long blue decorative wings, right this
way, folks.
I was down there for a long time.
She seemed to like it pretty well, she would moan
and then sometimes a special gurgle
girlish giggle
a choir of bells
when I really hit the spot.
We two all naked in bed and toying
with glasses on like dirty little scientists.
We called each other "naked boy" and "naked girl".
It was: magic, scary, happy. She was:
salty, sticky, moist as paint.
She said she was smitten
that first night. We lay there,
planning a common future, drunk.
"You're very soft," I said. "I'm not so soft."
"Yeah, you're kind of hard." I went down again.
"You keep doing that," she said.
And it even tasted good; I really liked her.
"I'm a funny kid," she said.
"I make a good first impression, that's all."
"Well, you're very smooth," I said.
"I'm not so smooth."
She put my hand on her
leg-stubble, showed me a spot of poison ivy
that was fading out on her
(quite soft, smooth) knee. She said, "What
would my X-men name be?"
"Uhh...Lepra?"
She liked it. Much better than the hipster line.
"Yeah, you could give people leprosy." "Totally."
More kissing, and soft wet sounds.
"Can I have your shirt?" she said.
My favorite shirt.
It was a symbol of something,
some bond, some pact
maybe.
The next day she said, "What would your
superpower be?"
"Well, I'm very unhappy...
not much of a power, I know...but sometimes
I go very fast...sometimes I go so fast, I can even
slow down time."
I felt very slowed down.
She was different today, not talking,
saying many times: "I don't know."
"Look," I said, "I just don't want
to bring you down
or waste your time, is all.
I'm not asking you whether we're
sleeping together
again tonight or not,
I just wonder if you want me here at all...
I mean, I can leave. You know that song, right?"
I just wanted her to talk to me.
"I don't know," she said.
We sat there for hours.
It was true; she was a funny kid.
"Just give me, like, a sign or something..."
Wind moaned on the prairie.
"Ah, I don't know." She was hardcore. Fuck!
I
guess I may have thought.
"Well, let's go eat," she said.
We went to Long John Silver's
and there was a kid in the bathroom washing his hands.
"It's all right," he said, in a ghostly voice,
"You go on ahead."
And next to the door on the way out
there was a brass bell hung, red white and blue
tassels to ring it,
above it a plate with the legend:
THE CAPTAIN'S BELL. I wanted to ring it.
But there was another plate under it:
DO NOT RING
CAPTAIN'S BELL.
"You can ring it," she said. I didn't ring it.
Then on the way back in her truck
there was another sign, even stranger:
THE ELEPHANT'S
CHILD
What did it all mean?
Was it that I said I was unhappy?
That I couldn't get it up 2 times in a row
ass-drunk? She was taking the easy way out,
not saying.
It hurt. I felt dumb. What had happened?
She had my shirt.
I still liked her.
....Well,
that was all right.
You never knew what would happen.
"Nice to meet you," she said. We shook hands.
It was over.
"I'll send you a postcard ," I said,
then leaning back into the cab
I told her,
"It meant something to me...
I'll probably never forget it."
I'm convinced that
she was very wise and that
somewhere in some empty room
way down inside her dancing parts
her
heart was ringing.
I should have answered it.