By Misti V. Rainwater
Date: 25 September 1999

Phoenix Ashes

     in another life, he tells me
        we would have been
         Fantastic Lovers
     maybe if we had met at the original Woodstock
       his name would have been Peter or Byron
           and he would have had a full beard and
        sheets of acid in his sherbert orange van
           and he would have seen me
           in my pigtail braids and nothing else
        bathing in the mud on an angel dust high
               and he would have thought
            Venus!
            Aphro Fuckin' Dite!
       and he would have carried me
    to his blanket
       and worshipped me
     while Hendrix saluted the flag
      with his electric guitar

       or maybe if we had met on the Trail of Tears
        he would have seen the sorrow
   in my Cherokee eyes
    and fallen like an anchor in the Atlantic
          and he would have had no choice
     but to take me home
    to his daddy's farm in Georgia
     and make beautiful coffee colored babies with me
            our pillow talk
          could have been about the ways
    of my people
         and the land we lived on and the spirits we praised
         and I could have dubbed his dick
         Big Curious Bear
       or Little Bashful Otter

   maybe if we had met before MTV and "The Simpsons"
       maybe if we had met
   before America was raped like a blonde co-ed at a toga party
      we could have found magic
   in each other
     taken a flying carpet ride to Budapest
       made love for hours
   in a pool at the bottom
      of a thundering waterfall
     rode stallions bareback
     down cedar scented mountains

   maybe there could have been a time for us
     before all these silicone distractions
       these corporate wet dreams
      these days of candy coated capitalism
           and down loaded lust

    as it is
    he is Happily There
     and I am resolutely Here
  and no amount of good sex
     will make
     the Phoenix
        fly