Okay, fine then.
Pretend that you don’t see the the flower in my hair
or the fact that I am wearing my favorite tutu.
I will pretend that I don’t notice the tired sadness behind your chipper greeting
and the tattooed Leonard Cohen lyrics that are peeking out your sleeve.

Pretend that you don’t care that I might sprout wings at any moment
or tell you a secret that could change your life forever.
Pretend you don’t see the red parrots in my left eye or the green parrots in my right eye,
or the roaring nightforest that I can barely keep contained within my chest.
I will pretend that you are not the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,
and that I have no interest in falling prostrate on the floor before you.

I will pretend that there is not a giantess in front of me,
who has thundered upon this earth for fifty or sixty years,
whose inner world is crackling with sorcery and aches to explode toward the sky,
whose heart has been stabbed so many times it now wears a kevlar tourniquet,
whose childhood dreams still stand pacing, awake and alert,
behind a cage made of shouldn’ts and can’ts and internalized misogyny.

We’ll just stand here acting like our souls don’t leap with recognition
like the fetuses of Jesus and John the Baptist
in the wombs of Mary and Elizabeth.
This is not the most amazing thing that has ever happened,
meh whatever.
This is just mundane, ordinary stuff.

Just ring up my groceries,
and I will hand you my cash,
and we’ll pretend that this is perfectly normal.