I saw you just now at Safeway
an angel working the register on Christmas day.
Every time, like Laurence Sterne
I admire your graceful hands and supple muscled
sinewy forearms, my Venus on a half shell’s dance
a living sculpted goddess’s limbs
how they move as music to scan each item
those sensual turns of wrist
well known by me at least to be the bare naveled waist of the arm
while I wait cotton-mouthed and panting ever nearer the goal
socially distanced, of course, from the customer in front of me
I write
depending on the waiting line’s length
a poem or maybe an entire short story dedicated to you
full only of clichés that indicate my great passion
the burning cheek and palpitating heart
watery knees and whirling thoughts
not having time or intellect enough
to come up with my own similes, metaphors, brilliant novel images
bursting forth
symbolizing and concretizing
my undying love for you in unique fashion.
For instance
why if need be I would die for you, my muse
climb the highest mountain and swim the widest sea
drop my treasured UH Rainbows jacket over a stagnant puddle
that you might walk, float as an angel winged on air, across it unsullied
no matter the cost of dry cleaning
to prove my love for you.
See how in fact
because the time’s so short on this particular checkout occasion
and my entire being’s caught up in so feverishly dreaming ahead
because you really are so very good with those hands of yours
I’m imagining vividly those hands of yours at work
as any man aroused may count
his chickens injudiciously before they hatch
I say see how I even had to steal the title of my piece this time.
Yet my paean, however hackneyed the words may be
explodes from me in full voice
as always in my mind never sung before, my dearest one
be it a full-length story
again time permitting
it blazes forth, a flaming sacrificial song offered up to you
just as much is this little poem of praise one too.
Lanning Lee 