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Semi-Insane Arietta 
She thinks I am the sun god
and I am charmed. She tells me
how hot it is, and I move from frosty
silence to speech. "Tell me
what you need," I say. "I need
to control the sun," she says.
"That's where you come in."
As cold people huddle
in their rooms, she knocks
on my door, swaddled in layers
of sweatshirts. She tells me
how the sun beats down on her again,
so hard she stands on a chair
to defy the heat. I tell her finally
that I'm merely a man, a man with
a thermostat and an eager smile.
She shirks me with a shriek, points at me
down cold corridors. "This will not stand,"
she says. I leave fresh green apples
and Lorna Doones by my door,
but she refuses it all�
she ignores the sweetness of sugar,
the starch that swells her face with scorn,
she spurns all fruits of the gracious sun.
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