The Racquetball King and the One Who Wouldn’t Be Queen

Across an avenue, seven doors down,
one-time subjects set fire
to a desolate, dying ground.

The racquetball king strolls from
a match easily won. He uses the flames
to light a joint and get the approximate time.

His skill with a racket and rubber ball
caught the attention of many, but it was
the girl, with a dead heart, that he desired.

She stood in the middle of the field of fire.
Everything about her was stoic. Like
she had been caught in Medusa’s gaze.

The racquetball king just couldn’t stand
the view. He used his back-up racket
to part an ocean of combustion.

In the middle of the inferno, the girl
with the dead heart laughed at the way
he frantically tried to get to her.

As the secondary racket started to melt
the weather gods calmed the situation.
Rain came down and blessed the hellish pasture.

The racquetball king bowed in acknowledgment.
The girl, dead heart not pounding,
gave the finger to the heavens.

A beam of light zoomed in on her.
The racquetball king felt like Arthur
before Camelot and she was his Excalibur.

The girl pulled a shriveled mass from her pocket and
handed it to the racquetball king. He could tell that
it had once been her heart. She kissed him

on the cheek, stepped back, collapsed and became soil.