I shop for underwear,
old ladies’ long baggy pants,
more sweaters against the winds
she says blow around her room.
The fury on her now,
she squats in an animal rage.
Stop buying from the sales
rack, she shrieks, but I find
the cheapest stuff I can.
She huddles under an old shawl,
wants chocolate, fist
clenches a pencil,
stabs the page.
I reach for her arm:
Don’t touch me!
What are you staring at?
Give me my food, my lunch, my dinner!
I want to throw it in her face,
watch her scrape the mess off,
shove it in her mouth.
Scabs blossom on her skin;
eyes, one opaque, the other
cold-clear, see what they will.
I put my face next to hers,
breathe the same poisoned air,
my face twists, throat locks down
my curse, subverts it to
a jumbled stammer.
She looks right at me: Get out.
My clothes begin to smell like her:
ammonia, shit, dead skin, dried blood.
I walk down the hall with her
stinking load of laundry,
knowing what I will find:
ruined vest she made from a gorgeous London wool,
handmade ceramic buttons,
the brilliant blue she wore the day we met
when she reached for me with all her hope.
I will find the way she picked up a leaf,
turned it over carefully, then into her pocket
to emerge glazed in a plate or bowl,
filled with chicken and dill,
how she stroked cottons, silks,
feeling all their possibilities,
how she held my baby, sang for hours,
how she called me her love.
Her mind has found a channel,
downcuts to a deeper madness,
picks up power,
hurls aside the need to know anything
but me, never gives up my name,
tethers me to her.
I drink bile, eat her slow death
