bodyguard

i don't need a bodyguard but one
arrives anyway. he was a tree in a previous life.
he stands outside the door whittling branches 
into vampire stakes. i don't know what
is wrong with me but the worse things get
the less i am afraid. my life used to be a watercolor
& now it's a pastel. easily smudged. the oil
on my fingers. sometimes i feed my bodyguard
a steak. i used to think only rich people
had bodyguards but sometimes one will choose you.
mine is not armed & i'm not sure
how much of a difference that makes. 
i read obama's memoir because it was free 
from the library & sometimes i want to know
what powerful people are thinking. we all write
myths about ourselves, some of them just grow bigger
than others. he talked about the secret service & how
they follow the president with quarts of his blood type
in case he were to need it. i think of how many people
die needing blood. how my bodyguard never speaks 
to me, instead, he mumbles into a cellphone.
it's a flip phone. he's calling his mother.
she lives in another dimension. one without war.
i do not know what brought him here. i do not
even know if he likes me. i guess that is like
asking a gun if it likes the bullets in its throat. 
there is a gun shop up the street from my house.
on their billboards they show sexy ladies 
toting ar-15s. i tell the bodyguard this & he shrugs 
as if to say, "isn't there always a gun shop 
up the street?" i like to imagine the inside. 
maybe there really is a sexy lady there, cradling
a gun like a little god. i ask my bodyguard 
if he would like to come in for the night. it is 
getting cold & autumn will be here soon. 
he refuses. stares the moon in its eyes. remains
as still as a stone. his faint shadow on the porch steps.