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You: A Trilogy
by Terrie Relf




NE: IT'S ALL ABOUT YOU

we’re at our usual café
you, at your table, sipping a latte, nicely foamed
reading Heidigger—or is it Nietzsche?

I’m at my table, imagining
you gesture to a chair, smirk
amused perhaps, by my obvious reluctance
to be pursued even while I pursue

thrilled by my daring (oh yes, and by several espressos)
I consider joining you, then realize
we can’t rush the process or
anticipate each other’s moves

instead, I try to write
Haiku, perhaps—or is it a ballade?
haunted by the hand resting along your thigh

it’s more than a coincidence
this poem beginning before we do
you’re a muse of sorts—how convenient
and oh yes, how heroically flawed

and I? why, a Minotaurean sacrifice
somewhat virginal
an audience captured for your amusement
an intellectual tidbit, nothing more

I cannot help but wonder, so indulge me
what will happen if I leave to get a refill?
what will happen if I don’t?


TWO: IT'S STILL ABOUT YOU

Here we are again…

it’s our usual café
you’re toying with a lemon peel
reading Proust—or is it Sartre?
troubled by the words upon the page

I wait for you

lift a Mahjong tile
uncover a matching symbol
then another

wonder if this is a sign

You yawn, stretch,
reveal what’s usually hidden
follow my gaze
with a knowing smile

how long will it take me to realize
gods and demons can take any form

and that’s not a good sign…


THREE: THIS IS THE LAST OF YOU

There’s this new café
the other’s a graveyard
ash and scattered bones
with that funereal scent
of stale espresso

Your toothbrush?
A fitting Momento mori
used to scrub grout from bathroom tiles
while I listen to the dirge of "She’s got issues"
knowing they were yours

The exorcism was less wake
than Bahktinian spectacle
science fiction and
horror reruns—

part camp, part genetic mutants
(of passing human interest…)

it was a necrophiliac’s nightmare
of blood-drained corpses
not even fit for anorexic zombies

where the blond dies
the black-haired beauty lives on
her powers immutably intact

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