There is a blue gleam in the alcohol
that swims in your eyes. I find it irresistible
not to put a straw in you and drink.
I want to put you in a pond so see if you will
float. It will only take a gentle heave
before you find yourself in a sea of starlight
and lily pads. I want to make a paper doll
of you, to keep in my nightstand to use
as a bookmark. I want to take you home
just as you are, but the empty glass in your hand
tells us we’re come to the end of the night.
I consider the flavor of your favorite ice cream,
what color it is against your tongue as I hug you
goodnight and hail a cab. You tell me not to
be so melodramatic-that there’s another bar
down the street. I consider this.
When something this good is happening,
you say, there isn’t any way to stop.
You haven’t been home in five months,
I remind you, our six-year-old started wetting the bed.
Now, I want to be the woman you took to bed
last fall, the leggy waitress with the birthmark
behind her ear. I want to remember the night
I found out, so that tonight I get in the cab.
I consider telling you that your mother called,
Thanksgiving is at Aunt Pauline’s this year.
I wondered why we never told her why
our six-year-old started wetting the bed.
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1 comment:
Do you know Priscilla Becker's poems? Remind me to send you one call "The Shadow," in which she addresses a "you" that is both lover lost and her own shadow. It's really quite fascinating, and I think you might be able to borrow from that strategy here, create some distance between the speaker and the you.
Imagine if this were titled "The Shadow" or "In the Afternoon, I Encounter Myself," There aren't many points in the draft that would seem awkward with titles like that. The daughter might be odd, but really most of it works.
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