PATRICIA SMITH
First, I put on your eyes. Then everywhere there are jewels,
rings of strawberry-tinged gold to wink from her fingers,
jade for her throat, grinning rhinestone tigers to droop from her ears.
Gems stutter in the light, and right away I say yes, yes, I try them
on myself, brilliance on my dry skin, then realize I don’t want her
to love you too much. Away then, with the tiny rebel diamond and
the amethyst pin ringed in Austrian crystal. I take off your eyes.
The jewelry dulls, becomes the stuff of aged matrons, price tags
yellow in tall glass cases beyond any key. In two hours, I will meet
you and we will scream and ache and try to love with knives
at our throats. But right now I close my eyes and conjure
the outline of your wife. I play in her cornsilk hair, resent her smile,
touch her ears with a shaking finger. I force myself down her forearms
and between each of her fingers, I ride her hips and heartbeat,
then slide down her legs and sit, exhausted, in her shoes.
This, along with what you’ve told me, is all I know of her,
the woman who has you. You, who have me.
It is your wife’s birthday. I am so bitterly and madly in love with you
that I volunteer to buy her gift while you are busy teaching words
to hungry writers. My soul is just that empty.
I consider brass diving helmets, tinkling music boxes,
a boxy raw cotton sheath, babushkas nestled in babushkas,
wacky lawn ornaments, a simple ivory egg, a tiny mandolin
and a Raggedy Ann doll. I sniff wildly expensive chocolates,
think of her name painted on silk with strokes as pale as air.
A sterling silver pen, kissed with an inlay of turquoise,
brings tears to my eyes. So do a dozen roses, carved of
burnished cherry wood, drooping as if they were alive
on the verge of death. Then I go totally wild, thinking
just let her see how mad he’s become. I ask a clerk the price
of a clock shaped like Elvis with tiny blue suede shoes
riding the hour and minute hands, then I actually stand
in line holding a beautiful print of a black woman
with braids hiding half of her face. Time is running out,
and this search dizzies me. I don’t want her clutching
the gaily wrapped box, falling in love all over again.
The Russian box whispers at me as I am about to rush past
another store, knowing that cold things would not interest her.
I love the wisps of gold, the delicacy of the icy colors,
and the salesclerks who dazzle me with fairy tales marred
by brusque accents thick as soup. Enthralled, I spend your
money, proud of myself, buying for the woman who is
my other me. She will kiss you deeply when she opens this,
and only that almost stops me, makes me want to flee
back to Elvis and his constantly orbiting blue shoes.
The raven-haired ladies lovingly wrap the box,
coo at my wisdom and insight, ask nosy questions at the
sight of cash, throw in the storybook for free. I wonder why
this is what I have chosen to move from your hand to hers.
Back in the hotel, I kiss you, babble and gesture, open the box,
show off the gleaming red enamel inside, and not out loud I pray
it is the box I hope it is, that when she lifts off the top
and looks inside, it will be full of the demons that dazzled Pandora.