Trick Question Poem by JAMES T. ADAIR

I hope there is another life....I really do.
Maybe in that life things will not be so guarded and false.
I met a geisha once...or that is her expectation of how I viewed her...which insulted me....but I forgot about that. Actually, I saw her as a butterfly who somehow touched me softly and made me forget about heartbreak. She said she was forward and asked me if I liked men or women. It was a trick question. But I imagined she was a she and my hopes blended with the feelings I felt return to me during lonely nights and days. Caring is so free.....it's dreams that cause hurt. I must remind myself not to dream anymore. But that Geisha.....I really felt her. If there is another life, she's someone I would look for in it, just to say....I would love to meet you without the makeup and without the pain and the distrust it brought. I realize I've never really made love to anyone. Then again, nobody ever made love to me. In dreams, there was aways both. It's not the same if you catch a butterfly as if the butterfly lands gently on your arm and finds comfort there. Maybe in the next life I will have a chance to be the butterfly.