- Vol. 08
- Chapter 07
To The Rescue
Slick with sweat
And weighted by hubris
Riding one-armed
Lady Godiva style
Your stereotypical white stead
Serpentine and menacing
Flowers in your hair
Your souvenir scarf billowing
And all your ghosts
Swimming up the river behind you
“To the rescue!”
You cry.
Then you just cry
And cry
And cry.
“You should bring people to Jesus,”
Chris K. once told me in front of the class
Freshman year of high school.
He was a preacher’s son, after all.
Bradley M., his buddy,
Agreed wholeheartedly.
This was after I read a paper on Chechen rebels
That I was particularly proud of,
And I blinked at them,
Slightly confused.
To The Rescue
Little did they know,
That I would later prefer
To bring people to Planned Parenthood instead;
That Senator Vukmir,
Who always seemed vampiric to me,
In both name and deed,
Would try to have me arrested
From her seat on the bench
Of the Wisconsin State Senate Committee on Health and Human Services,
While the committee’s lone democrat played peek-a-boo
With a baby in the audience;
That I would somehow remember
What they’d said
All those years later
As the young women cheered me
Like a rock star,
Whopping and hollering;
And that each moment was etched
So firmly on my brain
That I would one day,
Over a decade later,
Write a poem about them both.
A hippie without a cause
A savior with just a complex
So much in common
Running in circles to unwanted rescues
Advances boldly rebuffed
By people who flaunt their three arms
Ungrateful and proud
People who only need one
Whose own ghosts
Swim laps in their minds
“To the rescue!”
You cry,
Then you just cry
And cry
And cry.