My dear Contessa

My dearest Contessa:

I miss you.

We chat through black squares in black boxes balanced on brown tables and feather beds, but it doesn’t rank. Warriors require backs to rough walls, wrought iron gates, broken crystal vases.

When we were younger, I loved to braid your thick auburn hair, matching your apple green eyes with lemon ribbons. Our golden years, those. Scrambling into burgundy trees, ripe with fruit; throwing young plums at petty passing cars, not out of mean hearts, just a good game, honing skills.

Up top in our tall tree at the base of the walking path, spying on all who dared pass beneath, taking sharp notes in blue books with purple pens stolen from desks, solving crimes, adultery before we understood the definition of the word. We were steady observers, patient and lethal. Others were afraid.

We liked that.

Later you battled abuse, fought hard and won your freedom, bloodied tooth in hand. A prize worth keeping after years spent in dark closets on wet mats. Dogs barked to betray your silence while the world turned without you in it. Earl is dead to us now. Stone cold to hell’s hot. It is good riddance.

This was after the layered drinks, sticky with Cointreau and Grenadine and the fresh green weed, Cannabis indica and sativa grown in the greenbelt of Humboldt County, earned through defense attorneys with long gray ponytails and rose-colored glasses. We had our share of picnics and naked plunders in rushing rivers, icy falls leading to broken bones worth the breaking.

Remember that time we grabbed the Valiant? Four-on-the-floor and took it for a spin to the local Burger King, high on weed and cool Peppermint Schnapps? I was twelve. You were younger. Whoppers were ninety-nine cents that day.

Drive-thru windows, grocery store clerks in clean white aprons, gas station mini marts with sugary snowballs and beers tasting of piss. Be kind to animals we demanded. Don’t sleep with JP Stevens. Make love not war. If they didn’t offer it, we helped ourselves all-knowing, alert, alarmed and armed.

Pamar Prowlers; that’s what we call ourselves, our brand. Proud, fearless lionesses hunting antelope in Kenya.

We went to Kenya, remember? On a whim with our Visa cards and not much else. That was when we dared to notch our bedposts. One hundred fine men each, every shape and race, circumcised, (or not) chiseled and vulnerable, our prey. Let each fall for us, adorn our throats with pink. sapphires for me, diamonds for you. Their pictures pressed to the back of bedroom doors like postcards. “Having a wonderful time.”

There were darker nights, hidden behind velvet drapes in the fragile butterfly wings of theaters and above sweaty actors on cat walks, patiently pacing out our next move, aware of the drama unfolding because we dared it to. We memorized and recited, slurped on orange flavored nectarines, flinging our pits. You knew my story.

Later, there were red-headed twins and hazel-eyed singletons, chronic terminal ones clinging to indistinguishable breaths on breathing machines. Bells clattered, sirens wailed, shattered tears fell as we labored under duress, the kind that only white-hot love understands. Our hands held hearts and our minds horror stories that we shared sometimes if time allowed. You were far away then.

We are farther now; dry miles between our smiles. People come and go, but you Contessa are my Michelangelo. I reach for your soft freckled finger with my olive-complected one, yearning for more.

We will take our rest today while we prepare for tomorrow. The red sign says stop, not camp for the night.

---Isabella