Back To The Present

I do not like the name Gottfried: It makes me think of corpses and Italian poetry. I think of this while reading my book. I also think of love, and a million other things too boring to write about - so I am left sitting here, writing about a man called Gottfried while listening to Spanish TV. I cannot think of Gottfired having a lover, though I do know he had very hairy thighs.  Black hairs, to be exact. His skin was pale. His back hurt from carrying too much armor.

In another era, I might have loved him. Tonight, he bleats silently against my door. I turn up the TV: maybe it will harmonize with his bleating, vocal chords rubbing against each other like legs, or the lilly-stalks I used for metaphors in our love-poems, pieces of dusty paper we use as napkins; Yesterday, I wiped soup off my face with a sonnet. Tonight, similies will mop up my salad.

And through it all, a silent bleating I feel every time I touch my heart.

Author's note: Thank you to Dr. Walter Stephens for introducing me to Gerusalemme Liberata, which is an Italian epic-poem that does (if I remember correctly) have someone named Gottfried, and is about the Crusades.