Showing posts with label wife. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wife. Show all posts

8/26/21

MIDNIGHT - Louise Glück

Speak to me, aching heart: what

ridiculous errand are you inventing for yourself

weeping in the dark garage

with your sack of garbage: it is not your job

to take out the garbage, it is your job

to empty the dishwasher. You are showing off again,

exactly as you did in childhood—where

is your sporting side, your famous

ironic detachment? A little moonlight hits

the broken window, a little summer moonlight, tender

murmurs from the earth with its ready sweetnesses—

is this the way you communicate

with your husband, not answering

when he calls, or is this the way the heart

behaves when it grieves: it wants to be

alone with the garbage? If I were you,

I’d think ahead. After fifteen years,

his voice could be getting tired; some night

if you don’t answer, someone else will answer.

7/26/19

Untitled - Unknown

When you finally forget her,
she’s standing in the kitchen.
She thinks it’s something in the water, and it is.
Her hands stop moving,
coming to a standstill in those rubber gloves
she seems to wear like armor.

And she looks out the window.
And she takes a breath, turns off the water
and goes to sleep.
And in the morning,
she wakes up
and makes you breakfast without a word.
Even when you break the plate.

Because you don’t remember the last time you were sober
and the lines between desperate and despise
start to blur come sunrise,
so you’re never awake to see it.
And it’s her fault, really.
After all these years she still can’t cook the eggs right,
still can’t shut up the baby.
Still can’t cover up bruises quite right
so it’s her fault when the questions come, really.
What were you supposed to do.

For her, it was a quiet affair,
she washed the dishes and made you dinner and
poured whiskey till her hands shook.
And she let you slip away.
Put the baby to bed and just let you slip away.
You’ll never forgive her for that.

But what about the kids.
They all say it, they all knew before either of you did.
But what about the kids, and all the time,
what about all that time,
and wouldn’t it just be better to stick it out.
Just hold on.
Just til Christmas and then we think about the broken glass
and the doors that don’t lock. Just wait til Christmas.

And what was she supposed to do.
Let the devil keep writing messages in the mirror?
Let the kids find out?
Let her traitorous hands burn the place down?
So she just pours you a whiskey.
And she waits til Christmas.

And the kids don’t find out.
And the house stays unburnt.
And she wears her rubber gloves like armor.
Like maybe you can’t touch her
if she’s washing the dishes.

And eventually you forget her.
She takes a breath.
And puts the baby to sleep.

And she lets you.

12/31/15

PARABLE OF FAITH - Louise Glück

Now, in twilight, on the palace steps
the king asks forgiveness of his lady.

He is not
duplicitous; he has tried to be
true to the moment; is there another way of being
true to the self?

The lady
hides her face, somewhat
assisted by the shadows. She weeps
for her past; when one has a secret life,
one's tears are never explained.

Yet gladly would the king bear
the grief of his lady: his
is the generous heart,
in pain as in joy.

Do you know
what forgiveness means? It means
the world has sinned, the world
must be pardoned—

12/11/15

I Feel Safe When You Lie - Derrick Brown

In somno securitas.

She slid into bed
easy as a knitting needle
into the spine of a hare.

I threw a bag of chalk into the air
across her body
while she slept.

Little rabbit.

I lit black lights into action
watched the frenzied prints emerge
from her breasts, neck, and thighs,
souvenirs of desire.

I breathed across her tight, sand-tanned stomach.
Chalk dust blew into her nose and she awoke.

I asked her
If the man made love to her with all his might?
Did it feel the same?
Did his beads of sweat fall upon the necklace I worked for?
Did he extend the milky antennae of her legs into the air?
Did you tune in God on the meat hook channel?

She said:
“My dear.
Slow, jealous detective,
Come sleep by me.
These prints are yours
And always yours.
They simply will not wash away.
You have had your head in other people’s hands for so long
you forget what your own touch looked like.”

The faders of twilight approached.
I curled into her with my arms,
dead across her ribs,
feeling the rate of her heartbeat increase
as she wonders if I can feel a lie through her nightgown.

It is a feeling I get
when ice-skating through the rising crackles of sunshine.

In sleep, there is safety.