Leaving the Okay Marriage
Wreckage, thy name is progress. —Stephen Dunn
Chair with one shorter leg left at the dump. The apartment
close date keeps shifting. No amount of packing tape
will hold. I wake up on the black and white floor
of the restaurant bathroom as my cousin bangs on the door.
I try to wipe up the puke. I learn to sharpen my own knives.
Blue balloon drifting over trees, cut string still clenched.
Sitting on his lap, crying, I feel him getting hard. I don’t know
what to do with my hands. Chewed for a long time,
kale turns sweet. He strips off his sweaty gym clothes. I turn
away but not before noticing he looks more cut. Attention span
of a firefly. I leave town for a week and forget my chargers.
He overnights them with a note: Recharge yourself. I love you.
Who really needs to wash their face every day?
Shiny dime left on the ground because it’s face down.
by Marie-Elizabeth Mali
Chair with one shorter leg left at the dump. The apartment
close date keeps shifting. No amount of packing tape
will hold. I wake up on the black and white floor
of the restaurant bathroom as my cousin bangs on the door.
I try to wipe up the puke. I learn to sharpen my own knives.
Blue balloon drifting over trees, cut string still clenched.
Sitting on his lap, crying, I feel him getting hard. I don’t know
what to do with my hands. Chewed for a long time,
kale turns sweet. He strips off his sweaty gym clothes. I turn
away but not before noticing he looks more cut. Attention span
of a firefly. I leave town for a week and forget my chargers.
He overnights them with a note: Recharge yourself. I love you.
Who really needs to wash their face every day?
Shiny dime left on the ground because it’s face down.
by Marie-Elizabeth Mali
Marie-Elizabeth Mali is the author of Steady, My Gaze (Tebot Bach, 2011) and co-editor with Annie Finch of the anthology, Villanelles (Everyman's Library Pocket Poets, 2012). She formerly co-curated louderARTS: the Reading Series and the Page Meets Stage reading series, both in New York City. Her work has appeared in Calyx, Poet Lore, and RATTLE, among others. She can be found online at www.memali.com.
