One morning, the wife says,
(alone at her desk)
we are forgotten. We are cold.
We never knew each other.
Early on, she’d thought knowing
would come, a matter of good will.
Now she sees her husband
colonized by the talk box crap,
dirty wires, buttons she doesn’t know
how to work. She keeps pressing—
the opinion button the I’m sorry
button the tomb the blank face the half in
half out button. Poor man.
And she likes the sound of rain more.
She likes her window best.
I wish I could never need
love from shells, she says—yet
she knows he’s an animal with heart
and bleeding ulcers. He leaves
signs—droppings of yoghurt,
honey globbing the counter,
legs rushing through the door.
To him, she’s a scary animal.
Her shrieks cause him to cover
his ears. To sneak marijuana, fuel
his hermit dream, in a forest
far from the mythical apartment.
In Later Marriage
Carla Carlson is the author of LOVE AND ORANGES, Finishing Line Press. Her poems have been published in various journals and magazines such as Derailleur Press, Adelaide Literary Magazine, The Mom Egg Review, The Mom Egg, PANK, Prelude Magazine, and more. Carla is a member of the poetry faculty at The Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College. She lives in Bronxville, NY.