High Colonic of Love

You remember the past
through shit-colored glasses;
a watery brown-out,
a slaughter-yard wallow
that stains your eyes.

No chocolate bunnies,
no baby chicks or peppermint candy.
The rainbows got sucked into a black hole,
gold coins, leprechauns and all.

Lucky for you that I kept a record,
scribbling notes and plucking
the jewels from the turds
before they disappeared forever
down the drain.

Here's an item:
A declaration, a promise made,
a gift to be hung around your neck
or strapped to your forehead
like a prayer box
--but all you remember
is the breaking of the promise.

You really should keep this gift
in your mojo bag--
it will bring you more good luck
than a rabbit's foot
blessed by the Pope himself.

The giver was a woman,
and not just any woman,
but a woman who slid down your throat
like sweet cream
and warmed your belly
like hot buttered toast.

Remember when she spoke to you,
earnest and naked in your bed,
and revealed to you the hidden wonders
of the dark continent of you,
and announced her position
as first lady of the united states of you,
and her eyes and her voice
led you through that tangled forest
to the place where all your lost radiance
sat waiting for you to find?

And what about that other woman?
The one who touched you
like a butterfly landing on
your summer-warmed, grass-stained
vagabond face.

She took all your innards
that were spilled out on the ground
and stuffed them back into you
and stitched you up
like a much-loved childhood doll,
and thawed you with her easy-bake-oven smile.

You've wiped your ass with her gift
and tossed it on the dung heap
as carelessly as all the rest.

I think it's time to schedule you
for a high colonic of love;
to purge yourself of the slamming doors,
the harpy screeches, the castrating hysteria,

and make room for the good flora and fauna:
the smiles that pardon all your secret sins,
the rolling on the floor like giggling pups,
the salty sweetness of ardor-swollen lips,

the warmth of flesh that curves
into yours at night
and acknowledges your spark
when it's at it's most tenuous,
protecting it the way cupped hands
keep a burning match from the wind.

David Aronson
January 2008