1/25/2017

the sky melted, sweating glass
for three days straight-
once, we marveled at the inexorable and eventual

at
the drop that makes the bough
bow.

i remember the ache
of the sunlight on my
crooked nape

one May day . We sit in a January cafe
"It is springtime," she announces
except these days, it's no emotional pantomime, not a hopeless mantra

"and why?" I beg a question
"oh, because something's starting"
she mixes milk into her honey

it is too sweet for me
the umbrella opens in the shop
"put that away, it's a bad omen" oh, as if I care

imagine me so treacly?
she talks about pregnancy and politics
about marriage

and something in me,
i realize
wants to be, is disgusted by my far future maternity

at the supermarket
there's a jingle
hey, mom, what's for dinner?

"Uh, hey, I feel like Plath... marriage is oppression and all that"
"Well, join the club. Oh, domesticity-"
"O'Hara said : There is only one man I like to kiss,"

I misquote, intentionally.
"Heterosexuality!
you are inexorably approaching!"

perhaps we can't wait
to be thirty and bored
with three kids

watching them play at the Minetta
wondering where the hell our time went
and there they'll sit

polish- to her irish, italian- to my puerto rican
new jersey mutts
i laugh

thinking of drunk days down on
53rd and Lex
we're not ready to live like it's 1953

*oh, johnny promised me
and i wear his
ring