husband.
2006-06-22 11:35 p.m.
chance, catching you here, the same citythat i have given years to, that i have settled for and endured these hard seasons, the same city
that has gathered dust around my ankles, that has summed me up and failed to surprise me, that once seemed second-nature, now seems
unreliable,
out of sorts,
uneasy.
i wondered if i would recognize you, when the time came, but i knew
traces, sips, endurances
that women do not know when they have not spent nights beside you, have not, at sixteen, snuck into motel rooms, no changes of clothes, pretending
that there was luxury in this type of exposure, in half the time just to recover -
what furious works we could manifest! our knees
haphazard against the bedframe, but later
we tried again, the middle of our marriage
making its presence known, uninventive, confined
to those old motions
(i've no heart in this
any longer
just a story about the lake, the summer, both of us
poison ivy
the first time i let you have me, saying
no hands - hands too personal, too knowing
for this sort of thing -
i was perfect.)
buried, an impulse in me unstrung, struck up a sour tune in us, left you
determined
left me uncertain of my place. what placement
would have arranged me certain, would have secured my hands and held my waist
unbidden,
would have made me, unmade me,
might have let me stay,
no victim,
still assured of my own safety?
not your hands, still callous, tokens of the bleach
upon our marriage
when i taught you that man is not just born of water, but carried out, unwilling, on the blood of his mother, and you could not stand
the stink of me, the terror,
that you had returned these acts, though not quite
in this order - years earlier, your head naked and uncovered (i kept my hair short in mourning you, in cursing myself for years over my failures, some scripture stuck long after
the loyalty was over), your wrists working out
a revelation-
my power
my shortcomings
led to your reaction, stretching arms to elbows, pulling open, accusatory.
commitment, i would have
been stable as the ocean, would have been reliable and certain, would have kept my promises
obedient and biblical, would have believed
in the goodness of your harbor, in the grace of your shortcomings, in the hardships we manufactured, would have
hoped for the forthcoming better
if you had not forced dominion
if you had not loved me so unfaithfully.