H. A. Sappho


GONE UNDER THE UMBRELLA 


I need more scrumshot talent she insisted
And fried platanos 
All the computer screens agree
Hold me tighter is what they all say and they really say it
But we always eat tomorrow instead 
Just can’t wait for the fork or the hurricane
Or the microwave killer of butterfly seeds	
Dinner is so many aftertastes to sort through	
A pandemic is no place to waste such boredom
Prolific is hardly enough to describe its stale potatoes
Just get out already and walk and walking is feet scuffing dirt into air
That’s when the dream dropped in for a second visit
How many times can the same thing be remembered or is it forgotten
How many ways can remembering and forgetting be the same thing
But to get on with last night’s dream on the candle
You were a four-year absence laying on a couch surrounded by umbrellas
The outdoor market was barely visible dusk will do that
But the rumpled asphalt was as clear as the dirt scuffing my now
And your face not beautiful but something more  
And the more is what makes it sexy 	
As is your voice the underappreciated fountain of beauty
Tossing bouquets to the ears of umbrellas
Despite the violent boy with the two giant sewing needles 
Who we surrounded with chefs and allowed to escape
And then my lips were against your breath
Saying Come home with me
And I did 
Exactly when the dream turned gray
Where I disappeared from myself
Into some other self
A self of its own absence
This one here
Fingering the low hot wind
Scuffing dirt into air

H. A. Sappho is a native of Los Angeles with expat time spent in Prague, Berlin, and Hanoi. His baseline interest is archetypal psychology. His work can be found in About Place Journal, Adelaide, Eunoia, and in nine self-published books of poetry and prose collectively named the Puer Cycle.

 
 

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