Yes, something I saw somewhere. Reminded me.
Of you or need to tell you something.

Tell me later. If you remember.

I will.

(pause) I’m hard.

(last plate)

What about you.

I’m going to wipe the counter.

(laugh) But I want to fuck you.

Well you can’t.

No?

No.

(pause) What’s the matter.

Nothing, it’s—

What?

I’m holding this filthy sponge—

Well put it down, darling, Christ.

If we start we’ll just have to stop.

There’s time.

There’s not.

Just for a moment.

I can’t, let’s just talk, I can’t—

Please—

(pause)

All right.

(pause)

It doesn’t matter.

(inhale)

Did you put the sponge down?

(small laugh) Yes.

Wipe your hands.

(wipes)

God, I can see you.

What do you see.

You with your elbows on the stove. The back view of you. Bending for me.

(quiet)

I want to be inside you.

(sigh) (sorrow)

You’re wet.

Yes.

Are you crying?

(wet exhale)

Because of the way I’m fucking you?

(quiet)

Let me hear you cry.

(swallow) (cries)

That’s good. Good girl.

(pause) They’re going to cut us off.

Darling.

And it’s because—I just—

I know.

(whisper) It’s such shit.

No, I know.

This is shit.

Listen, I’m there. I’m kissing your eyes.

Yes.

And—listen—

(listening)

The things I have said to you—

Yes?

—these things, they are yours, I have said them so—so few times—

(crumb on the floor) (very close to the floor)

—to anyone. You understand?

Yes.

Do you understand me?

Yes.

There is no one like you.

(quiet)

You know that. My dear. Don’t you?

(crumb) (quiet)

I would kill—

QUEEN OF SWORDS

QUEEN OF SWORDS

I sat with my mother on her birthday. All her hair had grown

back. She said You know I’m really proud of you I said why.

She said Well look at you so successful. She meant thin.

She loved my husband. I wanted to say Well look at you so

alive. Maybe that’s what we mean, when we compliment

each other: Look at you, it hasn’t killed you yet. Her hair

came back pure black. She looked unbelievably young. It

made her generous, this second beauty; she saw happiness

everywhere. I touched the red wool of the new couch.

Everything was red, now, she said she was tired of beige, the

tyranny of neutrals, it was all about strength and life and

love, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it, sweetheart?

THE HANGED MAN

THE HANGED MAN

It occurred to me, at the feast,

that we were spared:

you’d never seen me taking a shit,

or standing in line

at the post office.

I’d forgotten,

in the wood,

what life was like:

how full of painless things.

How huge.

I didn’t have

blood or dew

to give. It did not make me new

to sit at the long table