Dakini

a poem

It was astonishing the way that really loving one another made the sex so good. God forbid some accident, he was the one that she would marry, have some kids and all the rest of it. They hadn't quite exactly clearly spoken of that yet – for heaven's sake, how much to say and ask before you work a conversation up to that! But now it's Friday afternoon again, her place tonight, and so her eyes flash to the office clock. Five minutes past! How had she let five minutes pass? Papers stuffed into the filing cabinet, mash that small computer button off, check keys and wallet in the purse, shrug on the business jacket, smooth the blouse and skirt. Last Friday night. The way their legs had wound so perfectly that he had simply pushed in all at once though they were just beginning. Astonishing.

Traffic. No choice, she had to take the goddamn turnpike all the way to exit twelve in Framingham the same as every other goddamn day. She pressed the brake then pressed it hard and saw that all the other people too were stopping – all those faces, all those lives for miles around – and took the moment's chance to pop the finished tape cassette, glance toward all the others scattered in the seat beside, decide to try the radio instead. She pushed a button for an easy listening music station. Please, some random bit of fluff to calm her nerves. She loved the guy so goddamn much there was this stupid niggling whispering primate midnight fear that if she wasn't there he might somehow just disappear, might vanish from the land of clocks and living. She laughed at that and looked out at the evening's open sky. He had a key. If she were late he'd set the plates and make the salad.

The war came on the radio. Five minute news flash every hour, even on the easy stations. Her conscience would not let her finger reach to mash it out – what if some of their children someday went? Would someone listen? In its insanely easy tone, shocking that a human voice could say those things, a voice informed the ear that tremendous bombs had fallen and there was a battle. There were some counts of various assorted dead. Gazing out into the soft and lovely sky, above all of these gathered lives, beneath this sky, she saw the horror falling here. But then again the music and the cars were moving. She'd throw herself into his arms and maybe weep.

But then, what was this vision halfway rising into consciousness? Real. Solid. Eros in itself. Something from the college days, sunny window, freshman dorm. Something sunshine warm her hand had lifted and her fingertips had touched. Of course: That small golden heavy statuette the roommate kept up on a shelf. A god and goddess fucking, standing, exquisite in countless fine details of necklaces and bracelets, anklets, belts of woven jewels the curving fleshy intertwining vine-like figures wore, smiling, gazing each into the other face and breathing each a breath the other just had breathed. Their hips were bent and bellies pressed in such a way precisely that the phallus certainly was being held completely in that place where of all places it should be, just in the way that it had suddenly appeared and rested full and quiet, reassured and reassuring, for a breathless moment last Friday night.

Why did this vision – that sensation – come so near to comforting right now? Yes, she'd throw herself into his arms and weep.