Constant

Yes, she is a zombie.
All of her people are zombies.
Her whole family moves in slow,
Nerveless jerks, consistently unblinking, with no
Color, no humor: no more than existence
Alone.

But I was, in my early years,
A behaved and studious child,
The type other children maliciously
Called ‘Poindexter’, and ‘four-eyes’;
And I was a manageable bit overweight.
I was the easy target.
After school I was often beaten bravely
By a variety of more popular boys:
A cadre of the socially stable.

As I grew older, my separation
From the collective of those other children that everyone
Thought would be the successful ones,
Led me to be awkward with even
The most awkward of girls:
My dating was mostly group
Affairs, a tactic in which the socially
And sexually inept would band together
And take to a public place the girls
No one else wanted to take any place at all.

I knew those girls imagined us
As the boys they would give
Everything to, just as we imagined them
To be the girls we would take everything from,
Just as nothing on those dry dates
Would happen at all. To this day
I cannot unclasp a bra in good time,
Fondle an unsuspecting breast just right, or
Cradle anyone’s pelvis to its best angle.

And then she came by. Yes, a tad bit
Gray, her hair unkempt, her surfaces cold to the touch:
But more woman than, to that point in my life,
I had ever been carnally recognized by. Her slow,
Dim witted step is no match for my quickness.
Her head rolling about aimlessly
On limp shoulders, strangely, savagely, comforts me.
Her stare, from the ice chests of other
Worlds, flashes with eternal commitment.
There is a seemingly sensual predictability to her.

So, I let her in, folded back my sheets,
And lit the air freshener candle I had been saving
From when they went on sale at half price
During Dollar Days at the Discount.
I peeled the undershirt from my chest
And ran my hand through my thick, androgynous hair
Nipple to navel, navel to nipple,
Imagining she might do this
Were not her other needs supreme.
I am in some ways an object of desire:
The one thing this woman, not quite alive,
Has the remaining gasps of her closed existence
Focused doe-eyed carnivorously on.

Well, you lost souls of playground bullies,
You warm blooded favored elites —
You who got the girl while I got
Imagination and an angry, soulful fist:
Who is the easy target now?