May's Poem of the month

A Note from Wilma Hopkins

It sits at the top of my email in-basket,
a note from Wilma Hopkins
with the enticing subject line
‘Do you love me or not?’

I have never known a Wilma,
excepting the one that Fred Flintstone
bellows for in cartoon Technicolor,
but I don’t think she took on another surname.

And I doubt that this is truly a Hopkins,
or even a woman,
begging me to learn more about
her long-lost desire for fulfillment,

particularly since I don’t even know
what or who I would be fulfilling.

Every fearful synapse in my brain
says to ignore and delete such mail from strangers
since they usually have more devious intent
like spreading electron worms that eat my words.

But how do I resist such an inquiry,
carrying, as I do,
the usual male ego that craves attention
even from ghosts beyond the screen?

To click, or not to click,
that is the impulse,
whether tis nobler
to grasp at a dream of fantasy lust,
or to send Wilma and her erotic spam
to the recycle bin of email ether.

To answer your question, Wilma,
I need to know more, but that becomes the conundrum:
I cannot know more without opening the envelope,
which would then unleash your true identity
and render my answer meaningless –
which is to say, I love you not.