Scene:
  
3 A.M.

The Husband and The Wife lie in bed,
asleep.

The punch line:

3:02 A.M.

The Wife, stubbornly inert,
had not yet shut her eyes.

She is practicing the art of stillness
in the midst of a bloodbath

3:05 A.M.

soon to be brought about by her own wretched hands.
Above the sheets, she grips
the mirrored blade she stole from Williams-Sonoma
at 12:12 P.M., yesterday.

The husband breathes,

3:15 A.M.

bathed in sick, sick ignorance, but,
as the wife knows in all 206 of her bones,
not a drop of innocence.

She does not concern herself with the (During: 3: 51 A.M.)
****** itself,
even as her weapon slides cleanly between the goal-posts,
because she is already four steps past this act,

4:15 A.M.

scrubbing herself down with lye
and transferring the stained dish-rags from Wash to Dry.

The Morning After:
doesn’t really matter, it is all a performance
directed by necessity.

The wife stands at her kiln
(what a strange and extravagant wedding gift)

8:00 A.M.

and convinces herself that innocence
is a four-letter word, used exclusively by lying
men like The Husband--
who speak only in threats and backhanded
compliments.

In their fatal blindness, these men lie down in bed--
so very stupidly--
with the targets of their rage, the twisted products
of fear and resentment and bone-cold courage.

And The Husband stands tall with his cruelty--

Even at the moment of death (4:00 A.M.)
Even in the wake of his own burning flesh (8:01 A.M.).