The Heart Intervenes, a Dream Poem
We are four strangers learning to live together
in a new suburb where streets are names from the past.
“Good morning!”
I precipitate crisis in the kitchen
by eating biscuits when no one else thought to bring breakfast.
Get us food, too.
My reptilian brain calculates the minimum I’ll do to escape
the weight of obligation …
but before I finish the math, we regress into college kids
rushing the street Julia barricades with furniture
to keep out the law by breaking the law.
I have to join in.
We’re juvenile, and that’s what delinquents do…
but before we finish, we’re in primary school
and the Hinkle brothers are showing us how to run fast
and low
so no
adult
can see
the mischief we’re up to.
We stumble into a ballpark where
players, fluffy and soft to the eye,
stand motionless and gaze at home plate
except for a guy like me who calls to a girl he can’t see.
More fielders pop up, a grove of them grounded like daisies.
I begin to wonder if I would like to stay
in this lazy place, slow and sweet as molasses …
but before I finish, I’m the middle-aged guardian
of a pasty-faced Mountain Dew Moon Pie woman
with rapid onset diabetes.
She’s about to be booted
out of her shabby old house with unvarnished floors
and only a bed
in a room
the size of a jail.
Her landlord inspects for dust with a cruel eye
and a hand poised to write an eviction notice.
I turn my head to address the strangers
I tried so hard to live with and make friends.
If we work together we can clean this lady’s house.
They turn away.
It’s left to me,
the fate of the Mountain Dew Moon Pie woman.
My reptilian brain calculates the minimum I’ll do to escape
the weight of obligation …
but before I finish, my heart intervenes.
I’ll keep her house clean as the throne of a queen
and buy her a six-foot Baby Grand Piano
Mike Wilson’s work has appeared in magazines including The Saturday Evening Post, Fiction Southeast, Mud Season Review, The London Reader, The Phare Magazine, Beir Bua Journal, Dust Poetry Magazine, and Mike’s book Arranging Deck Chairs on the Titanic. Mike lives in Lexington, Kentucky, USA.