Bright Red Dress (a.k.a. Anima)

 

She wears the Bright Red Dress, dances on marble table-tops

 

Has that perfect laugh — Head tilted back

 

You know the kind.

 

Yes, she’s That Kind

 

The kind they like to put in slow-motion

 

On the movie-screens

 

The kind who gives the teens

 

Wet dreams

 

And makes men stiffen in their theater seats

 

As they squirm over to one side

 

So the wife won’t see

 

The hard evidence of their fantasies.

 

Yes, she’s That Kind –

 

Her smile blinds,

 

Those wide big eyes

 

Blink innocently

 

While what they think is underneath – unbridled sensuality

 

Simmers through transparently

 

Because it ain’t necessarily

 

Her own sensuality

 

But I won’t bore you with

 

Such Things.

 

They all imagine she’s Untouchable

 

While fiending oh-so-desperately —

 

To touch her ever-endlessly…

 

Projecting every wanted woman they have ever seen

 

Unconsciously on that Bright Red Dress

 

She happens to be wearing.

 

Betting to themselves deep down, “I know her and she knows me.

 

And if I could only win her over, she’d see we’re meant to be.”

 

Oh, how they think Know her!

 

And there is some magic quality.

 

I’m not sayin’ she don’t have it —

 

It just ain’t the Realest thing.

 

‘Cause they all think she’s the Virgin Mary

 

And Madonna —

 

Goddesses Sophia and Innana —

 

Some twisted kind of Freudian mama

 

That they secretly beg to Keep.

 

Sweet souls just projecting onto her

 

Their hopeful, true-love dreams.

 

Nothin’ wrong with this except

 

When the woman removes the dress

 

She hopes the men who said

 

She was the greatest thing since whole-grain bread

 

Will be able to, instead,

 

Love the regular, plain ol’ “me.”

 

You know — the very real wife beside them

 

In the theater seat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Want

I want a fast car –

A Jaguar

And a werewolf-vampire boyfriend.

I want a close-up when I wake up

That shows perfect lush lips and long, curled lashes

As I slither out my California King in silk and lace lingerie

Slipping artfully pedicured feet into cashmere slippers.

I want to inhale imported Italian espresso as I pad to my pristine

kitchen —

The one my top-chef cooks in.

I want to look out my various-home-windows and gaze upon oceans,

And skyscrapers, and the Leaning Tower.

I want to wear buttery-leather skin-tight pants and stilettos that feel like flats

Because they’re made by Someone Fancy.

I want to be naked on one of those faux-fur rugs that feel better than the real thing –

All sprawled out in front of a glowing fire on a stormy night

Waiting to be seduced by my other-worldly boyfriend whose millionth kiss

Feels like it were the first kiss

Every Single Time.

I want the thick anticipation; the rich, shaky kind of energy to vibrate between us

Like Commitment was an Illicit Affair.

Instead, I sit in my 500 square foot apartment with the broken A/C

And wonder if I should make the effort to brush my teeth tonight.