I have a rose from Roger, and Linda loves him. The cats rendezvous on the rug. I pose before
the rose,
before the mirror in dusky candlelight,
my waist is disappearing.
There is a month’s
worth of daily news
stacked by the fireplace.
I burn it—a sacrament.
Dumb words to poems—
Smart words to fire—
the being inside me tumbles.
The cats murder the garbage,
devouring its heart
like fresh kill. I’m strange.
I’m wonderful. March is
a wet lion on the lamb.
I stand before the lit rose,
the lit mirror, to view pendulous
vein laced breasts,
scary-mother-earth-tits. The baby counts
my ribs.
The Peace Lily blooms. Vacuuming, I recall
Roger’s
rosebud mouth kissing petals, sipping ambrosia
as if
I were tit and he, babe. Roger saying, “How did that felt?”
Roger saying, “Roger is complicated peoples.” I ask him to say,
“Take out the garbage,” in French, and he does. Valentine,
the rose
you left presses open in the night glow. Its secret escapes
into
the evening air. Yesterday’s lovers fade. One leaves the words
of a
foreign tongue, another’s tiny-self lingers bearing the lessons of love.
