Stella's Gypsy Garden
And
they'd sit
in her gypsy garden
gently applauding the lavender
taking its first gulp of spring
as they drank Turkish coffee and played chess
Stella sporadically running back and forth to her piano
to share new songs she'd been working on
Meanwhile
they'd hear her beautiful sister
singing away in the kitchen
as she cooked lunch with a knowledge of plants
that would've seen her melting on a stake
just a few hundred years earlier
Her hands
excitedly vanishing into enormous jars
as she retrieved all manner
of exotic delicacies
reclaimed from supermarket bins
on nightly scavenges
Their way of fucking the system
And after lunch
high on coffee and conversation
they'd sheepishly slip through Stella's bedroom door
and make love for hours
on that rotten mattress on the floor
surrounded by guitars
and the underwear strewn desperately
aside the feverish notebooks
as Mick lost himself between that sticky Amazon between her thighs
something he came to see
as an extension of the way Stella let the world
to gently come to her
evolve out of her
Coxed
powerless
to the coital realization
that no sane
mortal man
could do anything but submit
to a Mystery so ancient
it transcends language
as he watched the solitary sunray
tickle her perfect breasts
knowing even those breasts
would fall prey to gravity’s snare
never to be as perfect as they were
in that moment
And after they'd both cum
they'd recline blissfully
amid the pool of sex
discussing the Kabbalah
Gurdjieff
and her childhood in a hippy commune
Giggling sheepishly as he dressed
and left through the bedroom window
both agreeing that front doors
weren’t as romantic
And he'd playfully call her a "Hippie"
a "weirdo"
and Stella supposed she was
but she'd been so many things
by the time they were lovers
lived through so many lives
that she'd stopped trying to label them all
Because that's what made it so beautiful
So simple
So effortless
They were two different
to ever fall in love
Yet they respected each other enough
to be curious about their worlds
Some days
he'd wander into the library
and find her sitting in the aisles
cross-legged in her flare cords
open books scattered around her
like an alchemist in a Dürer etching
The other customers
knowing to leave her alone
caught somewhere
between fear and curiosity
He wasn’t ready
He still wasn't ready
He didn't know if he'd ever be ready
And in the
wild years since
he'd come to suspect
that ready's a myth
that no one's ever truly ready for anything
But he was certain
that she'd introduced him
to Hafiz
Omar Khayyam
Neruda
Cohen
To a world patiently
waiting for him
that afternoon at the station
Because she was the first person
to call him a writer
And on those afternoons
as they rolled around in the sweat
the music
the jazz
and the books
for the first time
Mick believed it too
