They
sculpted and scattered and molded in time slots
her mandates define her like olives in gin
from bathroom to beeper so snugly connected
she struts like a punctual guardsman
unsoiled
as he watches the march from his favorite corner
…an almost disorganized bundle of tweed…
from the nook where his ashes sag safe in their pipe bowl
he watches this dervish of womanly will
did he marry this clock? this unending rehearsal?
his privacy cramps with inertia’s greed
as her hands reach reflexively, smoothly, artistically
to snare straying objects or children or whims
and arrange them
like flowers, like notes in a symphony
singing to sundry, to tourist, to neighbors
indulgent or needy? he wonders as ever
and shrugs to his corner, his teetotaling haven,
replete with aloofness, asperity, brine,
and his puzzlement.
Locked in their maze of unquestioned denial
and sceptical sniping, he keeps her at bay.
She no longer expects him to learn how to soar
through her fantasies…
…waltz with her will.
She retreats, reconnoiters, attends to her flowers,
unable to set him, her husband, in place.
Like a hangnail he pulls at her channeled desires
untorn and unmendable
snagging the silk
of her soul
while she clashes her vistas against his inductions
in habit
in marriage
in alien trust.
©1999 VJI
