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Find and Replace

I.

Jen, darling Jen, I will see you no more.   There is somebody new.

The fungus toes my soul.  Only a flame will check its advance.  Your flame smudged itself out.  You are ashy and dry.  Soon you’ll just be dry, babe.  If I keep seeing you, the fungus will choke my soul shut.

I will never forget you.  I will never remember you harshly.

II.

Three tables separate us.  You looked juicy through binoculars and you look juicy up close.  Your thong bobs like a crowd member praying to be noticed.

A hair of grilled cheese dries itself to your lip.   You just disappoint me.  Any fool knows all animals deserve respect.   It’s self-evident.  The cheese bounces in time with your chewing.  Way to rape a cow’s dignity, toots.

Darling, oh darling, the fungus spreads, but I keep a patient temper.  I will pin your soul and tweeze out its ticks.   Your flame will fan more widely.

III.

A respectful distance separates us.  You try different shorts.  Green spotlights your eyes and tight flatters your rear.   Your thong imitates a plunger for a detonator.

Your SUV starts.   Every day, the air presses all its thumbs a bit more firmly upon us, toots.   Our children’s children will trundle their children through a cold and drained and listless world.  All thanks to SUV-driving whores like you.

You’re shameless, but oh you are not hopeless.   I will pour my soul into your mind.  You will learn.

IV.

Your trash.  A torn envelope and Newsweek subscription tag tells me your name is Anna.   An apple core and lint shake hands across an empty Coke bottle.

Your name is Anna.  Who cares?  There is no flame.  All you are is just an empty and dry shine, toots.  The trash reaches high and wide over this earth.  Trees sway under its shadow and are cut.   Yet you don’t recycle.

Three is the magic number.  I’m done with you, bitch.  You can put your trash back in its bag your damned self.

V.

Jen, darling Jen, please forgive a foolish man.  Sometimes, promise waters down a man’s thoughts and pings them off-course.  I could not see Anna was in cahoots with the fungus.

Oh I will see you again with a reborn ardor.   Tomorrow, I will introduce myself.  You will see the real me.  And if I walk past you saying nothing, then I walk past you saying nothing.  I will just find pleasure in Googling your images, and just keep dreaming of meeting you.

John Lennon is singing, “It will be just like starting over.”

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© Nitin Jagdish 2010

Nitin Jagdish is a former freelance critic; film and music criticism appeared in Digital Culture Stream. His most recent work appears in Infinity’s Kitchen and Little Patuxent Review.