--TODAY I’M SO HAPPY THAT EVERYTHING IS FALLING APART

The Photo of us in Saint Barts Where I’m Tanned and We’re Smiling and You’re Thin

was taken before the slaughter,

your new boyfriend,

the day you tore nails across my cheek,

and asked if we had cat problems.

  

The Seamstress

  

Our bathtub is filled with buttons--

mother of pearl and metal,

plastic pea coat shapes with

embossed anchors,

wooden toggles from Holland,

horn and hemp.

 Your hair is a gray dandelion gone to seed.

Your eyes flit like a startled squirrel

and saliva webs your mouth when

you open the door.

“What on earth?”

you ask.

 Later in bed that night

I listen to your coarse breath, your frail bones 

moaning as you toss and turn.

But we were young once,

and you stitched beautiful things then.

You dressed queens and saints,

men with money.

 I slink off the mattress now,

and click on the bathroom light.

As I slide inside the tub

the buttons chatter and gossip,

their color shimmering.

 Perhaps you clipped them

because they reminded you of better days,

or maybe you overhead me on the phone.

Either way, I grab handfuls and watch them clatter

across the great heap.

When I look up,

you’re there,

naked but smiling.

You ask, “Is the water warm?”  Then,

“Got room for two?”

I Am Off

She scowls and lights the words on fire.

“Why do you always write such wounded stuff?”

Then, she says, “There you go, there you go again.”

She means I am off,

I am looking eastward,

over that herd of hills

to a flat land

and a dark place

where witches burn their enemies

and children scream for mercy.

 She’s never been there,

I’ve never told her,

so I take her hand and say,

“Come on.”

There’s a comedy playing

and we’ll have popcorn gooped with butter-flavoring

and it will be so much fun,

I promise.

Girls With Insurance

Jackie and Taylor are the girls with insurance,

though Jackie has a black eye

and Taylor wears a nose ring.

They sling camouflage and wife beaters,

kohl and a hiccup stride.

They’d be yesterday’s charade if it

weren’t for the weapons,

the bombs strapped down

like the flat breasts

all those jocks teased them about.

Tailor

Recently there have been

amendments.

You call them adjustments.

They are new flecks of light in your eyes,

a stare over my head,

busy fingers on the key pad,

a new book by Doone.

 I am letting things out, too.

When I see the tailor

he says there’s enough fabric to expand the waist

three inches tops.

Then he says, “These things”

but never finishes.

 When he’s done I hear the noise on 52^nd.

It sounds like a war.

A cab takes me south toward Soho

where I know he lives

and you’ll be.

It’s time to get this fixed.