Her Name Isn’t
Margo, but It Should Be
by Daniel
G.
Snethen
She never talks about feelings.
It is as if they do not exist.
If they do, they are to be repressed.
But how can I repress such things?
Ours, is clearly a nebulous relationship,
obfuscated by shadowy concrete differences.
I am the Yang for her Ying.
To most, I am a mystery shrouded in smoke.
Best understood thru Eastern mysticism.
She helps stem my rage.
She is my soothing opiate.
She completes me.
To her, I am a child—yet complicated.
When I need her most—she knows.
But does she know why she knows?
Does she really know who she is?
Does she really know who I am?
Does she even understand who we are?
I doubt it, I doubt it, I absolutely doubt it.
I doubt she understands the answer
is deeply spiritual—not empirical.
She doesn’t know that our essence
should be inseparable, uncontainable.
That one cannot divide darkness from midnight,
or hold mystery and love in a locked box.
Like time, we transcend all these things.
But she knows not these truths
and I dare not tell for fear of losing her.
Daniel G.
Snethen is an educator, naturalist, moviemaker, poet, and short story
writer from South Dakota. He teaches on the Pine Ridge Reservation at Little
Wound High School in the heart of Indian Country. His best friend is his
three-legged dog, Knightly, who is a cancer survivor.
Bernice Holtzman’s paintings and collages have appeared in shows at various
venues in Manhattan,
including the Back Fence in Greenwich Village, the Producer’s
Club, the Black Door Gallery on W. 26th St.,
and one other place she
can’t remember, but it was in a basement, and she was well received.
