Djinn

I dream of genies

Mystic was a magic place,
peppered with old men in roguish caps whose rosy cheeks
stoked by tankards of creamy ale
spilled stories of beautiful ladies
who sometime past
had smashed themselves on ragged seaside cliffs
but still walked wailing under sweeping lighthouse beams
on moonlit nights cast over the rocky beach.
So much better than the serious doctors with their stiff
white coats and so neatly trimmed
gray side-burns who packaged fear in words like leukemia,
alopecia or other obscure latinates, disease
dispensed in measured tones
in crowded rooms of children waiting to hear their fate.
I knew when we went to the local mall to meet
Jeannie that she, with her soft magic,
could heal my wayward cells
and draw them back into motherly line from where she
sat on her red velvet chair in pastel purple robes
to dispense the love and soothing I craved deep
in my broken marrow.
I knew too to stay far away from Captain/Major Tony
on the left,
with his tight blue suit and lapel pin
who would no doubt only pat me on the head
and tell me to be a good boy. I stood
just two children away from a miracle of beauty
at quarter till twelve,
but I suppose that hunger called
requiring a tuna fish sandwich to fill a hole,
a craving in the goddess’ stomach, like death needs
to hungrily claw a child from his parents arms
in his ravenous noon-time need.
So off she went just then
from her throne and I was left
with Captain/Major’s second wife,
a plumpish woman with dimples and tight,
curled blond locks who picked me
up in her cloying fragrant arms of cheap
polyester and efficiency
to tell me to be strong and good
and to listen to my mommy and daddy
and always to not complain or cry too much
as death plucked me from my peaceful
jewel of life and dispensed me
off to the grim reaper’s arms with a quick
and thorough shove,
to process the next
child through this cold and uncaring world,
that following page or flip of a turned leaf.