Give Me

by Alethea Eason

Give me the ice cream in the refrigerator.

I want it now! Give me the thundering

afternoon cicadas and the lonely cloud

in the perfect sky. Give me the sigh of my dog

as he sleeps on the cool floor and a million

pills of promise. Watch me swallow them one by one. 

Give me eyes that see the coming rain

and shiny meteors to wear. Give me a pen

to write the fable of winter onto my hands. 

Give me rattlesnake spurs as I drift through

the desert. Give me black and white lizards

with triangular heads as tattoos for my breasts. 

Give me dove wings that lift me to the echoes

of angels perched upon the electric lines,

and then give me bricks to anchor me to earth.

Give me a quick jolt to awaken me from the dead.

Give me telekinetic-dancing feet to walk on.

Give me the smiles I forgot when I lost my soul.

Give me a piercing straight through my heart

and iambs and trochees that have marched

from the wilderness in muddy boots. 

Give me a perfect pearl of a Mississippi night

and voodoo moccasins to wander in the moonlight.

Give me siren wails to wake me at dawn.

Give me sweet water to wash the world’s crying face.

I want to catch the tears and bathe myself tonight.

* * * * *

Alethea Eason is a writer and artist who has found happiness and her true home in the intersection of desert and mountains in southern New Mexico.