Tristan
and Isolde, 2002
My lover,
she is a strange woman.
She calls me Hugo, ‘though
my full name is Hugo Robert,
and I detest the name Hugo.
But I let her say, “Hugo,
my slippers, please,” and “Hugo,
would you prefer orange or raspberry jam
on your English muffins?”
The way she says Hugo,
it becomes an endearment,
a less-colorful woman’s “darling.”
She sings bluegrass in the bathtub,
her voice rising and falling precipitously,
not like a dove or a nightingale,
but a bobwhite—soulful mourning.
My lover, she has taken to wearing
dark blue nail polish embedded with sparkles,
like Orion’s Belt, splashed on the tips
of her long, oval fingernails.
Silver-gray platinum has become
her second color preference.
My lover, she will ask
“Hugo, what do you think of—?”
‘til I am on the edge of answering, and then
she wraps me more in the mist
of her diaphanous musings.
She is modern in this way:
she can ask and answer her own questions.
My lover, she watches game shows,
her greatest vice is Jeopardy.
She summons confounded contestants
through the silent screen:
“It’s Sophocles. You know that.”
In this way, my lover,
she is a strange woman.
But you would love her, too,
if you felt the joyous timbre of her laugh,
touched the radiance of her mind and
heard the passion of her philanthropy.
She is irresistible;
I am Tristan, she Isolde.
‘Cept I am not a knight, and
she is not a tragic princess
but a woman with a penchant
for supermarket shopping at midnight
with me by her side, carrying the basket.
Copyright © 2002 Melanie Faith
