Elegy for Shay: RIP

 


Beautiful Girl and her machete men

(a campfire fable)


Beautiful Girl and I do ritual
she releases me on perfect young breasts
YAY US!!! we laugh together clapping hands
children again

there is a machete on my kitchen table
of course Beautiful Girl is the reason why
she is the woman in Wagamese's last novel
bush girl raised on the road by gramps and granny
too many logging camps have left
her perfect young body and soul damaged

at 34 Beautiful Girl is a New Age traveler
my  lost hippy chick from half a century ago
Beautiful Girl shows up unexpectedly on my birthdays
the only one now that I'm in my 70s
we do ritual together to celebrate
our mutual survivals

Beautiful Girl has a new boyfriend
I am 4 decades older
while her new guy is half  a decade younger
Beautiful Girl is almost guileless
so we know of each other

his PTSD is worse than mine was at his age
both living on the edge of society
me dodging the draft for the Vietnam War
living in the abandoned Eel Pie Hotel
him, hiding in the bush avoiding jail
for small town home invasions
machete always at hand in case of bears
or human invaders

Beautiful Girl notices the big knife on my table
he has the same one she innocently intones

Beautiful Girl has disappeared into the big city
looking for her lost children -
just hoping to be near them
leaving her machete men circling in this bush town
I hope we don't meet