Come Into My Red Bungalow

Your umbrella is broken, your mouth permeable,
the hair on your forearm rises in rebellion;
you glide by on your bicycle,
a plastic bag strapped to your head.

You might be jealous of my black quarter horse,
you might want to hide his bridle, but if
you go next door, they’re selling panties
with purple hearts and purple “x”s for only 99 cents

and sex is the only real distraction from
the weather. I want to take you to my secret room
where the VCR is stuck on midnight, red midnight;
I want to landscape the highway for you:
gray grass that gives like goose down,
silver, dog-sized rhodendrons who illuminate
our naked feet, our busy wrists, the knots we tie

with our hair and tongues. I have done
things under the table in your name,
or while whispering your name, but no one
will tell me which hospital you’re in and I

I have a small gift to hand you, pocket-sized, heavily
engraved, found in the gutter next to my truck
last Wednesday. The silver god around my neck

grows in my dreams until he reaches my chin;
in the rain, in my small backyard where he is tied,
my black horse shivers.
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I have an absolutely fabulous floor-length vintage silk gown I'm wearing to AwP. I'll post a picture. It makes me feel like one of those heavy-eyed Bond women from the Sean Connery Bond era.