From: <meghanblack@earthling.net>

To: <MRKS@onelist.com>

Subject: [MRKS] Poetry: Ritual

Date: Monday, December 06, 1999 2:03 PM

From: meghanblack@earthling.net

Believe it or not, I got inspiration for this from a combination of Baxter Black, Cowboy Poet and former large animal Vet, and Melissa Etheridge’s ‘Angels Will Fall’. I write alot of poetry, but never have I attempted anything fannish. Luckily, I feel safe enough here to run this by you guys.

Wow, I'm really nervous here...

Ritual

© Meghan Black

I sit before your altar with candles burning and music playing, as is proper.

Some people might call it a coffee table, but for tonight, it’s been transformed.

Tonight I sit, cross-legged on the floor, trying not to itch too much from wool carpet on bare ass.

Tonight I worship you the only way…the best way I can for now.

Candlelight casts strange flickering shadows across the wall and over the altar.

They dance upon the object centered there until it appears to be living…breathing…pulsing.

I sit my beer on the scratched surface of old wood veneer, but far enough away not to seem

Too sacrilegious. After all, it’s the Sacred Stetson which sits in honor tonight.

It must be my imagination, but I still feel the warmth of it where its rested on your head.

I reach out tentatively, and instead of the velvety, felt feel of hat, it is your face, soft and smooth.

But, it’s just a hat. And you forgot it when you left, which is amazing enough in itself.

Did you leave it for me? Do you know the devotion with which I would guard it until it is returned?

The Stetson. Symbol of protection, yet so much a part of you, I bow before it in adoration.

And dream of you laying upon my altar, with me crying out a benediction to your beauty.

We will make a ritual of lovemaking and I will always protect you…even when you forget the Stetson.