past the idiot men

I ask my husband, ever the literalist, 

if he missed me before he knew me, 

 

and he says, "It's not possible," 

so I say, "You know, in a poetic kind of way." 

 

"Still not possible," he maintains. 

"Like, the love was always there, but waiting." 

 

"Waiting?" he asks. 

"In a prequel kind of way," I say. 

 

"You mean like 

Star Wars Phantom Menace?" 

 

I think of invasions and trade routes, 

barren landscape of impossible dunes 

 

and treaties, what it took to get here, 

galactic unrest, yes, but deeper, 

 

like a scorched tongue 

in the driest desert mouth 

 

of pre-history abstracted beyond speech, 

and you were my mirage 

 

I want to tell him, over every next hill, 

past the idiot men 

 

who marched like droid armies 

then dissolved into grains of sand, 

 

ten thousand faceless others 

in the epic space opera 

 

that would precede us. 

But you were hardened starlight, 

 

desert bloom, something sustainable 

and airlifted to safety 

 

or buried like the roots of a knotted tree— 

marker, memento, 

 

trail I left for my future self 

to find you. 

 

[Teresa Leo, 'Force', from Bloom in Reverse]