Feel
By R.M. Engelhardt

Back in 1994 she was the model of all French fashion,
her hair slightly unclean and

tied up in a Princess Leia double knot cinnamon bun.

She's always late but ahead of her time. Never shaves
her underarms and on occasion.

wears makeup, and even glasses. All of the time
talking to me on the phone she decries America,

God, country and all of the boring bland music of the
Rolling Stones at once.

And from her bedroom this morning she says I am
thinking of moving to Seattle,

"There they know art!" "Yeah whatever," I reply,
adjusting her very large Persian cat off my lap

who always seems to sit on my nuts, crushing them as
if cleverly taught. "I am moving Rob. Did you hear
me?"

This I something that she does to get some Pavlovian
response when she's curious about "feelings",

but I know her game and it never works. And so I
answer back "You're only 24 and all you do is listen
to goth!"

The Bauhaus is turned up as her answer back as I can
hear her pee in the bathroom.

She puts her stockings, black combat boots & lipstick
on and pulls up her short catholic schoolgirl dress
with no

underwear beneath. "Oh yeah? Well you're an old
fucking jazz cadaver!"

I am told with a smile as her cat calmly watches from
the windowsill like tennis.

But now its Sunday morning, almost noon and she has to
go to work, and like

Dracula's Renfield drawn to the fly its springtime in
New York.

And soon, she will eventually move to Boston instead
of Seattle, never knowing, never hearing the truth.

That she was all of my favorite things and that the
time machine of the mind can never replace "feel..."

R.M. Engelhardt currently lives & breathes in Albany, NY where he is the host of "The School of Night" open mic at Valentine's in Albany on the last Tuesday of each month. His work has been published in such journals as www.poetrypoetry.com, nycpoetry.com, Industrial Nation, Metroland, Verve, Sure;the Charles Bukowski Newsletter #10 and many others. He is also the director of www.AlbanyPoets.Org