When I Am Weak

What could I say to you tonight? All my masks and what to do when you can't decide which one to wear? How much easier, when insecurity boils in the throat to be Hamlet the Dane heroic and tragic where the ending is known and expected but no less

DEAR

and not having to face my

FEAR

when you touch my breast just outside my heart when you read my thoughts and I'm mumbling

"the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune"

AND

"making my quietus with a bare bodkin"

AND

"the conscience that makes me a coward" blunting "the native hue of my resolution"

AND

"I have nothing for this Hamlet These words are not mine."

"No? Nor mine now. Nor mine..."

Do you understand? Do I even have to speak the phonemes the voiceless fricatives the sharp affricates? Does that stentorian whisp of your hand soak up the inherent goodness lurking behind the shroud of my paltry defense?

For this is the paradox the long touted and pedantically illustrated quandry of sages of life's sundry stages of our several and swaying and transmigrating ages

...that to be strong you must, be weak...

Ah, what winnowing wind's wielded in those weighty words

For I would be your Hurculean Gibralter and your Hector at Priam's tall gate And never submit to their suits, suitors alter But with Penelope pose, weave, watch, and wait

I'd anchor my arches with cementing starches To the cross where Christ crumpled and cried Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthanai Breaking breast breathing brood for his bride

But your demand is far tougher Your reprimand, only suffer No reassurance of respite relief And in the end to extend The consolation prize, Friend? Belies banality broached with belief

To the celestial and my soul's idol: Believe only this Fury's implied in a compliant kiss Be that all you know Ay, be that all you need know