Free Entry, Week 4

Some women marry fetishes.
Martha, for instance, dallies in yellow latex
gloves and feather dusters to keep her husband
coming home. And putting them back
each morning under the kitchen sink
next to the Brillo pads and Lysol, she smiles.
Some days she can’t wait for her husband,
for his red pick-up to roll up the driveway.
Naked, she layers herself in dish rags,
each one pinned to the next and stretches the gloves
up to her elbows to stroll past all her windows
waiting for mowers to start or dogs to be walked.
Her neck cranes at each rumbling motor that sounds
down the street, eager for her husband’s pick-up.
The street lamp clicks on, lightening bugs rise
then fall across the yard. He never shows,
never calls, and Martha unpins herself.