Thursday, April 23, 2009

Weekly Wishes


I wish... for sweltering, swollen nights spent sitting criss-cross applesauce under a blanket of hazy purpled stars, dreaming of voodoo queens and midnight seances and doe-eyed children in tattered babydoll gowns, running barefoot through bayous and turnpikes and humid everglades with their weeping willows and their hushed lullabies. I wish for slow-dances on the front porch of Santeria priestesses, first kisses under warm mangrove trees still dripping with morning rain, afternoons spent shimmying through the backyards of pastel bungalows protected by jangling painted bones and buried ancient charms - I wish for those sticky-sweet Southern summers that can only fully be experienced at night, kissed by whispered breezes and the distant hum of Creole Crow Dances.

I wish... that everyone believed in the most magical, lyrical, dreamworld, heart-thumping, head-spinning, storybook things, catching only glimpses of them but knowing that they're there nonetheless. I wish that strangers would shudder to a halt, spinning madly on one heel in the middle of the street, swinging to catch sight of pinched imps in fedoras and whistling fauns drifting past the corner of their eye. I wish strangers would tell of how boys in coffee shops steal handfuls of creamers and sugar-cubes, only to leave them in a broken trail in hopes of luring home his sweet-toothed anima. I want quiet girls to tell me in whispered words and hushed tones about how love-struck firebird boys visit them at night, whispering sonnets in their ears when they think they're asleep, and how paper-skinned pixies tell fortunes in the park to anyone who will listen. I wish the world around me would hum to life with long-forgotten tales and dusty stories and folks would tell of how these bedtime stories have cracked into the modern world in tiny, wistful specks of life.

I wish... for pink tights and cowboy boots.

In this quietly spectacular week, my sleepy boys and electric girls, what do you wish for?

Always,
Penelope ♥

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wish for my halls of residence to turn the central heating off when it is beautifully hot outside (not so much inside though).

I with burglars would theive elsewhere so myself and others can open our windows without fear!

BarelyKnitTogether said...

I don't think I realized it until now, but I wish everything you do.

I adore the sultry art of a southern summer. It does make one believe in mysterious things.

Anonymous said...

I wish for hot summery days, with pltenty of soft green grass to lie on and watch the world float by.

Anonymous said...

I wish for that the mysterious him to be interested in me. To scavenge pieces of information about me from pieces of hearsay. I want him to see not as a chubby, awkward girl, but as someone quietly beautiful, philosophical: brown, curly hair flowing, green eyes sharp, features small and cat-like. I wish he would experience the same engulfing attraction, be curious to find out how I think and formulate ideas, how I write. I want him to notice the poems I left scattered at the edge of his vision.