Queen of Denial

So Jennifer you are.

Wrapped in just your thoughts,            (and mine too)           (not that you’d notice)   you assume the Mummy pose in bed.  Are you sure your heart’s hermetic, secure in its canopic jar?  Or is it yet in your breast, just beyond sight, cowering still?

(And don’t forget your nightly negative confession – the world’s bad deeds you’ve never done –

all of them – don’t miss even one.)

And that kind woman in the Registry told you, didn’t she, as kindly as she kindly could (but in the blameless guilt of your secret vacuum heart, what was it you heard? And how in your soul did it reverberate?) “Sorry. This is all we have. This is all the information anyone has We can’t find out who you are. We don’t know what year you were born. We can’t find out where you were born. Nobody knows who your parents are, your mother or your father, or why they didn’t want you. Someone – we don’t know who – found you, wrapped in a ragged, dirty blanket, lying by the side of the road. You were turned over to the authorities and you were sent to the orphanage. And that’s all we know. I’m sorry. I wish we could help you. Sorry.” Of course, y0ou knew the whole story already – how could it hurt you now? “Don’t touch me,” you warned me as kindly as you can manage. “If you just leave me alone [you, too!] I can handle this by myself.”

But: a single slow tear somehow engineered its hopeless escape down your Alcatraz cheek.                                                                                                                               

Wrapped like a glove on the dresser. Lovely warm soft leather. Carefully crafted. Turned

nicely out. Waiting for the proper hand.                                                                                       

Together  (does that word really mean separately alone?)  in bed again.                                 

Pickets intent, rapt in their mission, inspecting invisible perimeters.

            “All lines secure, Sir.”

No intruder can penetrate.      (friendly, or otherwise)     And there you lie, wrapped around your arms     (not my arms),  world-weary frightened.

So Duane you are.

--Duane Vorhees