In Honor of Leonard Nimoy

In honor of the late Leonard Nimoy, this a poem from my chapbook “Triplicity: Poems in Threes”.  

Spock: A Romance in Quotes

We met by chance on a Sunday

at the town aquarium.

He stood aloof in the octopus exhibit,

gazing at their writhing tentacles, and looking 

inscrutably pained. He turned to me and said,

"They regard themselves as aliens

in their own world, a condition

with which I am somewhat familiar.”

I fell in love right there.

He came over to drink vodka

Gimlets on my porch swing,

and read to me from “Entropy”.

At first he was a bit standoffish,

but when we finally did make love,

he whispered, “Random chance

seems to have operated in our favor."

He moved in on Tuesday.

When we fought,

he would squint at me with his satanic eyes

then say something unarguably rational,

without rancor, without

smashing plates. That was the thing about Spock:

he could always be trusted

not to smash things, not to shove his fists

through the drywall in a rage, or fly

into a temper on the freeway.

He just dealt with things. For a while, it was bliss.

Then his unflappable

demeanor began to try my nerves,

at which time he observed,  “It is curious

how often you humans manage to obtain

that which you do not want.”

On Friday, he said he was leaving,

not just me, but the planet. "Nowhere

am I more desperately needed

as among a shipload of illogical humans.”

When I threw myself onto the futon and sobbed,

he stroked my hand and said, “You may find that having

is not so pleasing a thing as wanting. This is not

logical, but it is often true."

When I bellowed that he was a cold-hearted

bastard, he looked away. “I am what I am,

and if there are self-made

purgatories, then we all have to live in them. Mine

can be no worse than someone else's.”

And when I shattered all the plates and screamed

that he was throwing away a beautiful thing,

he just shrugged. "It has always been easier

to destroy than to create."

Then he packed his belt and tunic, and walked out.

Spock's been gone awhile now.

I still wear his Command badge on my bathrobe.

At night, I fumble for it, and hear

his sonorous voice: "Logic is the beginning

of wisdom; not the end."

--Kristen McHenry