A Man With No Head

I fell in love
With a man
With no head

We met at a fancy school
Where he was studying transparency
And the art of the negative

We couldn't dinner
Or drinks
So he suggested dancing

He suggested it
By writing it down
On a notepad
He kept with him at all times

And I thought, All right
Dancing

We'll go dancing

And we did

And he was a wonderful dance

Because he couldn't drink
I drank for both of us
And I think I was successful at that

Later that night
We went back to his place
And he told me
Well, he wrote me, rather

That his father was a very important man
A diplomat, living in a small village in the South Seas

When his mother got pregnant with him
His father took her to be blessed
By the local witch doctor

But when he found out
That the witch doctor wouldn't bless the baby
Of a non-native, he got very angry
And said some rather harsh words to him

The witch doctor said a few words of his own
In a very quiet voice
And nine months later
When the baby was born

No head

Still, the headless child learned to love the island
And his father taught him to read
By having books in braille sent in
Along with a special teacher
Sort of like Anne Sullivan, if Anne Sullivan
Had been a drunk old Italian man named Antonio

It's one thing to teach a blind child
Or a deaf child
But a child with virtually no senses at all
Except for touch
Is almost beneath an animal
One might think

But one would be wrong

Because when you lose one sense
The others pick up the slack, so to speak
And so the boy with no head
Became very adept at sensing things by touch

And with the teachings
Of the drunk old Italian Antonio
Who, at one time, was a great lover in Milan
The boy with no head grew up
Studying the ways of love
By practicing on the island girls
And reading romantic poetry
In the books his father would have shipped in

After a few years, the boy grew into a man
Ready to conquer the world
Using only his fingertips

But he knew that wouldn't be enough

So he flew to Spain to study
With a dance teacher
Who made his feet
As talented as his hands
And pretty soon
He was wearing dance tournaments
And becoming the du jour
Of European society

That was why he got to college rather late
And, truth be told
I think he was only there as a formality
For meeting young women

And so he met me

I've never made love to someone
Who wasn't all there
At least, not physically anyway

Every time I would go to kiss him
I would remind myself
That I was engaging a man with no head
And so I just hung onto him tighter
While he proceeded to show me things about my body
I didn't know existed

When we were finished
I looked over at him lying there
Just lying there
And I felt incredibly vulnerable

I've become very good at reading the faces of men
But there was no face there

No smile
No bitten lip
No sweaty forehead
No closed-eye, serene expression

Nothing

Oh, what an awful thing I'd done
Sleeping with this man

I'd allowed myself
To be taken in
And now what had happened?

He'd had his way with me
And whether it was delightful or awful
I couldn't say

I didn't know

His hair wasn't even messy
Because he had no scalp!

I became very angry

I stood up
And pointed at him
And said--

'Are you laughing at me?  TELL ME!  Are you laughing at me?'

He just kept laying there
Not being able to hear me, obviously

I sank down to the floor
And began to cry
And then I heard him
Reaching his hands across the bed

Looking for me

I still felt terrible
And used
So I crawled into bed
And he pulled me up against him
And, and...

I felt his body
Exhale

And I could read it
That exhale
I could...

I could tell something
Just by
Feeling him breath out
Against me

That he was...

Oh God, this sounds so silly, but...

I knew that
He loved me

And it suddenly occurred to me
What this could mean

I would never have to do my hair again
I would never have to put on make-up
Or be careful not to yell
Or worry that I kiss too aggressively
Or concern myself with what other people thought
Of the person I was with

He's a man with no head
What is there to judge?

I felt ravenous in that moment

I climbed on top of him
And we made love again and again
While outside a monsoon
Swept up against the high rise
His apartment was in
And tried to get at us
Like hands of hunger

When it was finished
He took my hand
And slid one of his fingers
Up one of mine

Then I could feel him
Hold his breath

I shook his hand

Yes, I agreed

Yes, we should

We will

We've been together ever since

Our children are lovely

They both look exactly like me
Which is a bit sad

I'll admit that one of the reasons for having them
For me, anyway, was to perhaps get an image
Of what their father would look like
But alas, it was not meant to be

We brought them to visit his father
Right before he died

He was still living in a little hut
On the island
In the South Seas

And we hadn't been there for more
Than a few hours
When there was a knock on the door
And standing there
Was an ancient little man
With one of those things through his nose

He looked at my husband
And my husband

Well, my husband was facing him

My father-in-law pointed at the ancient little man
And said--

'That's him!  That's the witch doctor!'

Then he put his hand
On my husband's neck
And suddenly, something started to grow

First two ears, then lips
Then eyes, then some hair

It was all happening backwards

A head--a head was growing!

My children screamed
And ran from the hut
My father-in-law passed out
And never awoke

And my husband...

Suddenly he was complete

He was standing there
All of him
Head, hair, lips, eyes
Teeth, an expression

Oh God, an expression

And I sank to the floor

I sank to the floor
And started to cry

The same way I had
The first night we'd spent together

I wasn't wearing make-up
My outfit was hideous
Wrinkles had started
To take over my face

And my husband
My dear, dear husband
Newly formed and rejuvenated--

He knelt down next to me and said--

'Darling, darling!  It's all right now!  I'm here!  I'm really here!'

And I didn't know how to tell him

I didn't know how to say that...

I fell in love
With a man
With no head

What was I to do now?

What was I to do?