"It is confusing, noticing
so many wires, crossed within.
Wanting and not wanting
Mars to touch me. On. Off.
Switch, strobing in my Heart.
I could hear his beat
as I laid where he held
me. I realized
I had not heard
another's Heart
beat, in years. AlWays
every few years, to be Here
with the man, who was
once the boy who had been
my friend. I remembered him,
he was a best, and most
annoying friend, "Do you
remember," I asked him, "When
I went to study at the Temple?"
"Yeah," he called back,
"You were so jazzed, about it.
Do you remember how
I became school leader, and you
wrote my graduation speech?"
"No," I said, "but it sounds like
me. Do you remember how I changed,
the second Time, I came back?"
"Yeah," he said, "You wouldn't
let me touch you anymore.
How does your body
feel Now?" he asked.
"I do not know yet," I said,
"She and I are still reconciling."
"Cool story Gretel,"
Arachne says, "Here, I think
you'll find this song, painfully
funny."
Venus presses play...
Medusa remembers Mars
when they were teenagers…
When I was 16,
he picked me up, on foot,
in the snow, under
streetlamps, on the ice
covering the stoop
of my dorm house. I signed out,
and we tried and did not try
to eat shit, as we
slid, giggling
to the auditorium,
to hear a pianist,
and to be in
the mystery together.
Mars wanted to be
Andy McKee, and
a photographer. He was
a Pisces, who wore X's
on his hands, and wrote me
a christmas card, in graffiti,
telling me to smell the flowers.
He was never without his camera,
or a guitar, or something.
In the dim passage, between
the landing and the high end
of the sloping theater,
just ahead, he pivoted
to dance with me.
Enclosed with him, in the idle
place, I waxed shy, even
though I knew Way
more moves than he
did. Frozen,
I let him lead.
Planetary Signatures 