MiPo Poetry Board Best of 2002

Samurai Jane
(Twelve Word Challenge)

When we do the hustle
on coconut-brown bedsheets
you are in the saddle,
a bad-boy Steve McQueen
straight from The Magnificent Seven.

Earlier we planted junipers
in the coffee-ground soil,
sentinels lining the sidewalk,
that we imagined might someday
shield us from the world.

But there is no hiding
in this Nebraska pit stop
where even the pet parrots
know everybody's name.

And now you seem to levitate
above me, your face
as familiar as my own.
Your smile swaggers while mine
falters in submission to reality

as I recall Seven Samurai,
the forbidden romance
between farm girl and ronin.
My family would never accept
that I love another woman.

Prefiero la muerte, I whisper.
I'd rather die than leave you.