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13thWR
THE PRINCESS AND THE PEA
What is this pea
beneath my mattress
plaguing me, love
I need and don't have?
Can't I be a cactus
thankful for water
that rarely comes, yet
able to live, even thrive?
Can't I root in sand,
dressed in spikes, with
enough self to be an oasis
through months of drought?
My oasis is my office.
I work hard to forget
emptiness, the name
of which mocks me: 'home' -
Home's my job. Perhaps
I shall marry success ...
Nothing can stop me;
nothing indeed: ouch,
a minatory fist inside
my leather swivel chair?
A pea? Another mirage;
I wake up alone.
The phone rings. Static,
like a gaggle of peas
being crushed in a blender
several miles away,
drowns out the voice
of my boss. I look out
the window. Is that you,
love, from my perspective
about the size of a pea,
waiting for me? It is --
I hang up and smile ...
Twenty years later
my son has become
some salaried jerk
while my princesses
live - in the house
I helped pay for -- with
that old bullfrog. Peace!
Let a cactus survive,
in a painted desert now
pea of transcendence
beneath shifting sand, would
you still baffle dry roots?
- Thomas Dorsett