A Short Red Hair

The clutter chokes my desktop, grows by yet another brief, another chronicle of greed, another record of mischief, the litigants all blueblood scum, their minds diseased and rotten, whole reams of folly, capping yellow piles now long forgotten, if unbalanced, if untended, if not pruned, if not clipped back, this unruly paper hedge would overgrow my coffee black.

My morning coffee, strong and black, steams in its jet black mug, sweet pheromones of ripened beans, my hands a warming hug, I close my eyes and brace myself against the slogging day, against dullards and gladhanders who simply will not go away, yet for silken silent seconds, sipping softly, breathing deep, I forget the hordes of halfwits and ignore the crowds of creeps.

This ritual is sacred, when the only human sounds are soothing slurps of sustenance strained slow from holy grounds my quiv'ring lips like fingertips as they dance over Braille, a reverence like Percival paid to the Holy Grail, this blessed bean! My smiling eyes look down, and in a flash I see a pubic hair--just floating there!--amid the neon splash.

Your grandma sports a hickey! Your wedding ring is brass! The Mona Lisa's got a moustache and the Priest farts during Mass! A violation voluntary? A desecration by design? Or a sign of territory by some twisted, tortured mind? My fumbling fingers fish it out, this first of all my clues, I yearn, I burn to find out how, and why, and when, and whose?

It sprouted up from female soil, of this I have no doubt, this flaming incandescence from a land that knows no drought. I twirl it twixt my fingertips. I hold it to the light. Is she daring, driven, playful? Is she cultured? Erudite? Is she waiting now, and wondering? Is this her special test? Is she weeding out the wannabees too weak to make this quest?

It's red, this hair, a dopplered flash flung from a dying star, the hot blood on a Viking's beard in brutal twilit war, this is the red of rage, of lust, the bright hue of the id, the brimstone red of flames that cleanse we sinners of our sins. This is the red of danger signs. Of trouble soon to breed. Of a scarlet wench who knows somehow the color of my need.

* * * * *

I played doctor to a red-haired girl at green and gawky seven. I confessed this sin, not knowing that I'd had a glimpse of heaven. An auburn nymph was first to slip her tongue inside a kiss. A redhead coed was the first to pull me down to bliss. I was blind and taut with frantic lust for a russet divorcee Who took me with my wounded heart and screwed my hurt away.

I remember well the pleasures. Yet some things I still suppress: my ripping heart, dark drunken days, black poisoned loneliness. Each time a redhead beckoned me, I followed without blinking. And afterwards I knew too well which head had done the thinking. Yet their hold on me was more than just their mastery of friction. They freed me from the primal fears that were my soul's affliction.

Since childhood I had kept a little nightlight in my room because my fevered brain would conjure monsters from the gloom; but a redhaired college bedmate worked to cure me of my shame; she bound my hands, shut off the lights, and played with me a game where in the darkness I would find her hiding, soft and nude, by following the fragrance of the musk she would exude.

Another redhead led me to the rooftop late one night when I confessed to her I harbored still a fear of heights. She stood me, leaning, at the edge to see the frightful drop, unzipped me, took me out, and sucked me like a lollipop, and blasted me into a realm astride some astral plane, where any worldly altitude seemed paltry and mundane.

Deep in our brains are memories we share of fins and gills, of trilobites and plesiosaurs, ancient whales and krill, yet the ocean terrified me 'til an alabaster Druid, (or so she said) would guide my head and nurse me on her fluid, and lead me from her bungalow down to the tropic tide, and as we bobbed pray to the moon and squeeze me deep inside.

These therapies of skin and blood unplugged my plugged-up spirit. Still I would brood on solitude, and soon began to fear it. And worse: I claimed dominion and enforced it zealously; and each love suffocated from my stifling jealousy. Through coursing tears their eyes were clear; each left me on my own. They recognized I had to face my loneliness alone.

* * * * *

Does it appear I've faced this fear? My life is only me. My mattress subtly sculpted to a lone anatomy. My closet holds a regiment of suits and pinpoint shirts. Dried whiskers fleck the bathroom sink; the tub is ringed with dirt. The fridge gives life support for mold from now-forgotten food. Spread everywhere are spreading women, always in the mood.

I slave beneath flourescents, overwhelmed by inert stacks, with a lukewarm mug of coffee, but the door split just a crack; the blinking stream of light a beacon from the bustling day, and like grinning kamikazes, colleagues leap into the fray, and this hair I hold a talisman, a sign that says this prison is just illusion. (In my shorts a crocus has arisen!)

If Purgatory's a procedure wherein sinners scrub their souls, and purify their purposes, and elevate their goals, it's enough for me right now to know that all my past transgressions, my lies, my rage, my cruelty, my cuckold-fear obsessions, can be the shedded skin I wriggle out of, and now bare, prepare to follow like a star this perfect pubic hair.

(Could we be kindred spirits in our ruthless introspection? Do mocking ghosts of childhood still proclaim your imperfections? Did schoolmates taunt you then because when they went out and played, you plopped beneath a favorite tree and read books in the shade? When you wrapped yourself from head to toe to hide your ivory skin, did you conceal with hateful zeal the heart that starved within?)

O Carrot-top, I'm glad you stopped today to leave this token! It's a gift of self so intimate; yet questions need be spoken: will I know you when I see you? When I drink of those blue eyes, will your sweet soul sit inside that sip to signal it's the prize? Or will you coyly turn away, having plucked for me this blessing, to revel in my heart's mad chase, and cruelly keep me guessing?

But my questions do not open doors nor strengthen wimpy will. So I grab my groin, hold high this hair, and vow to search until I wear your thighs as earmuffs and I lap your secret juice, and close my eyes and breathe the fragrance from your verdant sluice, and trail my tongue between your breasts and gently kiss your brow and enter you, in celebration of the Here, and Now.