Missed Connections in Louisville
Bagging Up My Heart
Priestess of Delphi (1891) by John Collier
A chilly December morning as I shuffle through the supermarket line.
The lad in front of me buys a bag of vegan cain-sugar and a carton of American Spirits.
“Fuck Christmas”is silk screened across his shirt.
His corduroys brush away and then I see your hands.
They take hold of my breaded, chicken-less nuggets
and tuck them into my hemp-fiber grocery tote.
Thin, strong, precise–hands of an artist.
Five digits play through my produce, while the others dance a fast and steamy tango across the computer screen.
Each sinew is wrapped in a beautiful lacework that carries hot blood up the smooth, tan curve of your arm. It winds through the sculpted hollows of a shoulder that spent a former life slipping from Coco Chanel dresses.
My gaze dares to trace a way up, along the graceful line of your neck, all the way to your lips.
Impossibly wide and full across your face, they carve out just the ridge-line of a smile that has roots somewhere deep inside, where joys and secrets are kept. Finally they meet again, just below the nose and fall into a valley so deep and soft, that I’ll never climb my way out.
Until I see your eyes.
I’ve watched glittering white icebergs crash into a frozen sea.
I’ve seen a harvest moon rise through the Milky Way on a cloudless night.
But memory is blinded by the wild opalescence of your untamed eyes.
My blood pounds in frenetic rhythm with the “beeps” and “boops” of the busy register.
You make me change & the copper pennies swap electrons between our skin.
My heart splatters onto your scanner
and you tuck it tenderly in place beside my Quack & Bites
and thank me with a ravishing smile.
I shuffle out into the cold and envy the next gentleman as he steps into your line.
Her Two Cents
We often spend our ordinary lives as if on a conveyor belt, from project to task, chore to commitment, never really cognizant of the swirling, mystical forces until the muse brings us to a screeching halt. We are bitten, smitten, and jump from our auto pilot existence into a fantastical world of inspired creativity. Look deeply into the vapors and allow yourself to be transported to the extraordinary – your life may never be the same again.
