“would you allow me to patronize you with lies
perhaps I might even tell you some truths”

I figure, what do I have to lose, but time, always the sand but there is no real point in paying attention to that until the end, and what can I do about that anyway, so perhaps a cup of tea, although I am more of a coffee wonk these days, years, how about a cup of earl grey, for bergomot is the most forgotten citrus, maybe, perhaps I can pull on a thread and work my own knots out or fashion a garment even in the process, I certainly have to bow to her experience but then again we all bring something unique to the arbitrary table, so let’s dance…

…and the hours pass on by, fantastical and intimate stories shared, in one direction, I never bothered to check her credentials at the door, and how would I go about that anyway, the tales seem somewhat legit, but who am I to say? I keep waiting for the reveal, the fortune nestled inside the cookie egg, or maybe I am missing the point of the entire exercise anyway, she controls me with her eyes even though the words are spun from her mouth, lips, lips that move hypnotically that is, I fear I am nearing a trance, scratch that, fear has gone, faded out like a shadow on a blank chalkboard moonless night, comforting darkness though, the soft kind right before you drift off to sweet slumber wrapped in your favorite blanket, to wander another world in your own dreams, is she planting seeds in those fields? how might I know, or even be aware when a spinster of such merit and age is playing with language so easily, are these stories that were ? or are to be? for me? or for…

orange blossoms and jasmine, or maybe it is the tea, her tea, sipped so perfectly without a sound, I see the ripples on the surface pond, the silence is a stark contrast like standing on a sheer faced cliff high above the surf, you can see the waves crash and imagine the sound they make hitting the rocks so damn violently but somehow romantically like a kiss, she sips again, just enough time to keep me from being fully mesmerized I think, of course she has had all this time to perfect her skills, like a linguistic surgeon, no, more like a veritable verbal ballerina, like watching a master paint a landscape effortlessly from the wrists on down, as if the very hand of the universe is drawing stars in motion right before me, all afternoon and into the night, the delight of her words is intoxication, is this love? or seduction, mental seduction as she penetrates my barriers with utter ease, doors open, my mind, and I am in rapture unable to decline her masterful invitations, invasions, all the while, somewhere before, I am trying to pull the pieces together, not sure of the whole outcome, like a puzzle- I start on the edges, a cloud piece to a cloud piece above the ground, but just the sound, I come to understand the yarn and draw of the pied piper’s lore, disarming, the stories flow…

at once swept up on a mighty ocean, the slick wet deck of an aged wooden galleon, rolling up and down in a violent storm, lightning flashes the night, I can taste the salt in the air on my mind, and then transferred to a conjured green wooded field ring, mixtures of pine and honey, a fawn on a sacred stump raising sweet lullabies from pan’s own flute, for even the butterflies pause to admire and sing along, their wings beat with the song, or perhaps in a desert, feeling the sun sap skin, coming upon an old sand ruin to know it’s story again, running my fingers along the edges and seams, where the mortar had been, and the hands of lives that shaped these rocks…

this is a transcendent tempest, a dream, a fever’s cradle, she pulls all the strings with my willing submission, truly I am smitten and drawn quartered in woven worlds, a web, a spider, a morsel wrapped up like a gift, for I am hers, so I succumb, she wins.