I don’t usually comment on a piece, especially before I even post it. But for this piece I am going to make an exception.
While most of my poetry it based on my life, this piece is not. It has a few elements that remind me of a past relationship, it is not my story, or anyone else’s. Its purely fictional, born of a few lines that moved me, a weaving of ideas that just came together at the right time. I actually really like this piece, even though it is sad. Anyways . . .
She looked the same as she always did . . .
“I looked at her,
And she looked the same,
As she always did”
What had changed?
Years of married suburban life,
At some point, someone, for some reason
I cant understand, stopped . . . touching
How did it begin, that begging of the end.
I feel as though we’ve been in the denuvaua
For years . . . Was it me? . . . Was it her?
The touching . . .
Its one of those things best remembered
When reciprocated.
Like a dime store romance
“He grabbed her body and embraced her,
She raised her head,
Brushed her fingertips across his lips”
I can’t remember the last time she ever looked at me,
In that kind of way
With halve close eyes pouring tears of passion
To mingled with our steaming sweat
Really it’s the words I miss most of all
The stupid endearments that fade away,
We became one of those couples
Who in our hurry to the office,
Only glanced at the park full of children,
Dogs, happy families, and the lovesick picnicking,
We thought only fleetingly
Of the honeymoon
I worked too much,
Paper piles grew despite my diligent,
She flew often other countries
Gone for weeks
Hammer in hand to break the glass ceiling,
On her way up up up
While I stayed glued to the ground, shrugging,
Struggling to shuffling my feet,
Haunting happy hours, and after hours
Where I knew I would not find happiness
But I played the game, at some point
We all play the game, you would too ya know
Living the life of a lie,
All’s well, all’s well, all’s well, here in hell
Then
One morning,
That rare hour when we awoke
Still next to each other,
Separate cocoons in a bed unused to two,
We rose and complete our
Solitary morning routine,
She carted her body in silence,
As if she was the only one,
My presence was just the necessary invasion
Like a maid in one of those four star
London or Parisian hotels
The ones I could never afford
But her company always paid for,
Million of miles and years away,
Always claimed she was alone.
At the table, I sat clutching my coffee,
Contemplating a bagel,
She grabbed dry toast, orange juice, and keys
Rushing for the door,
As if she had some reason to run,
Some awful thing to escape
Or maybe just had something better waiting
I called out to her.
“So, Hon, How’s your week been?”
Two clipped word were all she answered,
“Fine, yours”
Not even waiting for a response
She started the car,
Pulled out of the drive.
What can you expect from a stranger
Who submits to lie near you 1 week total out of a month,
Always . . . neatly on her own side,
As if their were bars that separated his and hers.
When a man with a mask of detachment glued to his features
Approached me at lunch hour I was not surprised,
Except that it had taken this long for him to contact me.
He handed me a pen
Oily with the essence of sorrow and bitterness,
I had to clutched on tight to keep it from slipping
As I signed the soulless legal document,
Accepting the unavoidable.
Back in my cube, I refused to weep,
My tears were the only things saved me from dehydration,
And despair had long since passed, years ago.
When I looked up, I saw her picture
Sitting in the shrine I’d appointed to her
Long, long ago.
And I wondered why,
Why see looked the same as she all ways had?
Who had change?
The bags under my eyes drooped,
My shoulders slumped,
My feet stumbled more than they ever had in the past.
Sitting beside the first was
Another photo of her taken last summer,
She looked the same as she always did,
But something inside her had changed.
In that way that pictures cannot capture,
And mirror do not reflect.
At first I thought maybe a little less luster to her hair,
Or a used spent look to her eyes, but no.
She still looked the same as she always did.
There is neither a line nor a fold on her body
That wasn’t there before,
But the person who spoke to me these last few years
Is a stranger.
I wonder was it a cheating heart or merely the body that consumed.
Aug 2001
