(Linda had a cleft palate as a child. This makes people very
emotionally vulnerable as adults.)
by Susan
Fox
You swim in
currents
of
disguised insecurity.
You are
cold and slippery
like the
fish you pull daily
from the
sea.
So one
night
you popped
out of the bar room toaster
and
attempted to seduce
my friend,
Linda.
I am the
man – dressed in white,
sitting at
the foot of her cross,
a broken
glass in my hand
and spilled
vodka on the table.
You are
kissing her.
She is
melting into kittens;
an old
wound reopens,
tonight,
she knows only desperate need.
Near the
table,
there is a
fourth
and
malevolent presence:
years ago --
the woman who refused to mother her.
With
persuasive phrases,
an open and
an honest face,
you proceed
with the need to defile her,
as you have
been defiled.
Linda does
not comprehend:
she gives
you both,
Mother and
lover,
easy access
to her soul.
But you
have forgotten me—
the man
standing in white –
I am held
close by
and my love
is stronger than jealousy;
it is
stronger than shiploads of tuna:
your anger
and your fishy need.
Take your
greedy violence
And all the
blackest storms you can pull from the sea.
She belongs
to God,
and
therefore she is kept impregnable.
The press
release concerning these events of Sept. 12, 1979, said simply:
“Raphael bound up a demon in the upper regions of the
Olympic Peninsula.”
