Take Your Pick

by Haley Kaye

He is ice

and she is earth

but they are not opposites.

He is conquest, through

calm calamity

She is coexistence with

even the regretful devils.

He is bronze, metal,

hurts to hit him,

but she is sponge

alive, she will a b s o r b the impact.

He has golden eyes,

(but.) blood-tinted

like the setting summer sun,

minted, melted Roman coins of the Zenith.

She is porcelain, pale,

trustworthy to drop but

only sometimes;

at the risk of a hairline crack

or a devastating shatter.

She is Saturday Night Fever disco

Beethoven

and he is classic Fifth,

but together they are something altogether

more

elegant, affectionate,

closer to saints than to gods.

And he says

“Pavarotti in the evening

or Vivaldi in the moonlight, you

need only take your

pick. And I will love you, in

the evening

and at night.

At dawn, I

will wake to rediscovery.”

She has hands of i v y,

slow moving and gentle

And he is the old, stalwart

smooth stone wall

Lovingly crafted and molded

(but?)

finding nothing greater than to

lay back into

her promised, earthen embrace.

To which she replies,

“Pavarotti in the evening

or

Vivaldi in the moonlight.

Take your pick.”