A Wife: To Her Grey-Haired & Close-Eyed Husband
Original:
I had skinned knees and a winter’s breath with paint above my left eyebrow and nipples that tapped at a blank t-shirt and the clicking of the record player began the letter telling of the simple pleasure of not being near you. I sang when accents lived in one place and when hiccups stopped the heart and the man beside you said God bless you instead of taking you to the ER in a Camry, but I ran with pinched nerves and a pale that held my tomato and mustard sandwich every day of my life until sixty-seven when I drove blind into the lake in Daphne, Alabama for my eighteenth birthday and all I got was mud and a plastic bag filled with soggy Cheerios, and there was a railroad that ran straight through town that reminded me of your ribs when you were too skinny to sleep, when your mouth tossed your words sideways on the ground and they burrowed into the carpet like LEGOs waiting to be stepped on and you watched our daughter gone down to the rock on the river where that dark girl read Wilde to the birds and the scared raccoons, while you sat with your Beefeaters and the dog and you raked the grass when there were no leaves, just to keep yourself from hearing them laugh, but it was okay when they kissed in front of you because there was no sound when the pink of their tongues spelled hello. |
Process Memo:
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