White Panties

White Panties

This afternoon while the hot sun
clattered through the summer sky
like a nail in search of a coffin,
I found a pair of your white panties
you had misplaced in my underwear drawer,
so simply surprising … oh, I couldn’t help myself.
I sniffed at the panties.

Ahhh.
The panties were so clean and fresh with soap and Clorox.

We are getting old, huh?
Me and you
almost 40 years we’ve slept in the same bed.
And yet there I was like a dog
sniffing at your clean white panties.

You are in Tulsa
visiting with your friends, the ones
I argue with in my head, the ones
who believe that a kingly god governs the world
and so in my lonely summery daydream
they question my devotion to your white panties.
They would tell me, I believe, to put
the white panties in your underwear drawer
where they belong.

They must have their reasons.
I have mine.

Outside the window despite the heat
our cat and a mockingbird were playing their game
to decide who will live the longest.
The cat was lying serenely in the thick green grass.
He waved his white-tipped tail as a flag
to entice the mockingbird to dive closer and closer.
The bird pretended she didn’t understand.
She squawked in defiance at the cat’s claws.
You and I know that the mockingbird will lose the game.
Already this summer we’ve found the feathers
of three mockingbirds scattered in the green lawn.


But I want to write a love poem for you.

This parable of the cat and the mockingbird
has intruded somehow into what I want to say.

Please let me try again.

I want to tell you that
I truly want to forgive your friends in Tulsa.
And likewise
I am trying to forgive myself for the anger
that I carry in my heart like dirty laundry.
I tell myself, We are who we are.
Nothing special.
Thank God our bodies can become such innocent travelers.
Any time of the day our bodies will forgive us
suddenly like…

like hummingbirds buzzing our ears
like unexpected desert smells
yes, like rain
like that night last week
the night before you left,
little bits of trash muddying my love for you,
but when I climbed into bed beside you
my heart miraculously becoming clean and fresh,

like
your white panties misplaced in my underwear drawer


Oh, my love,

your panties are the sails of a womanly ship
afloat in a holy but dangerous sea.
The ship is sailing to the end of the world,
and I am waiting for you to come home to me.




Poem from the book White Panties, Dead Friends & Other Bits & Pieces of Love. Copyright © 2006 by Bobby Byrd.
Published on the Cinco Puntos Press