Efi Hatzimanolis #29 Nature Lovers

Remember the bullfrog who charged at your feet

in the middle of the road?

Who, when you laughed at him,

took offence and sprung at you

as if to kick you?

How impervious to your shoe he was;

I might have kissed him in a dare,

had he not looked so thin skinned, squatting there.

Or the spider who ran into my embrace,

all gangly legs and eagerness,

who stopped startled when I stamped my foot,

momentarily stunned into looking like an asterisk

frozen in mid air.

Remember, how he threw himself at me

and I was forced to flee

as if escaping a rejected lover 

who fancies himself restored to me,

and then, all innocent like,

I called for the Gods to turn me into a tree?

But you, my love, were the stick insect of my dreams,

walking upside down silent as death across the tree tops.

In your sight, my unconscious.

You entered me there, first;

watchful traceless lusting,

supplanting my other lovers, enraging your own 

- the baby pachyderms who tried to trip you up

- the jealous baboons who threw their poo at you.

As far as I know,

Zeus never transformed himself into an insect lover.

So tell me, was it you who turned me into a tree,

covered me in velutinous leaves,

made me unassailable, then unavailable,

and finally, helped yourself for free?