Knowing What Love Is
It’s time I came clean about the things I know and don’t know and the things I know but don’t care that I know. The tilt of the moon, for instance, and the way desert sand funnels down through the earth; the chance encounters of aardvarks on a riverbank; the way I dot my eyes and cross my knees; the trembling down under when a stranger looks my way; my contingency plans for escape–from everything; the traps I set myself and then coyly step into, crying, “Oh, Mama! Send me some LOVE!”
Sometimes I think it’s me and sometimes someone else who’s pulling the strings, but then out comes the whip and the lashing begins.
Once, trying to stop my mind from thinking this way, I fell in love with a circus lady who had no legs and no arms. I spent the whole month of August with her in Kansas City.
But by September my mind started in again, and I moved on down the road.
