Q&A

The science doesn't mean a thing to me-- it's about this beating thing in my chest, you see.

At midnight Carlos takes me down,
he pulls me open and shreds me to pieces,
with his tremendous dirty mouth
and his little faithless little heart
because I could never blind him with science.
My silences to him all mean, "Yes,"
and vague answers all mean, "Yes,"
and even if I say, "I won't answer that question,"
it means "Yes," all the way down,
underneath the layers I have painted
onto the mask of my soul.
But sometimes
if I answer with the correct dose of hesitation,
he understands that I mean, "No,"
but usually that just means
he doesn't know when I'm lying.

And sometimes, at 1 o'clock,
Carlos will propose to me, with
some electronic engagement ring
that he'll transport over the phone lines
and when I say, "Maybe,"
he hears, "There's someone else,"
and when I say, "I don't know," he still hears
"There's someone else," and even if I say,
"Oh, for goodness sake, let me think before you speak, Carlos,"
he knows that he's the other man,
he knows there's always another man.

And at three-thirty when he falls asleep,
breathing into the receiver obnoxiously,
I think he really, with conviction, he knows
that even when he's pulling me open,
shredding me to pieces
someone beat him to it long ago.
But even then, oh even then,
underneath the layers of his faithless heart,
behind the vague answers,
his blunt assumptions,
he knows,
and I don't forget,
he was the first to get on his knee--
if only to ask me to blind him with science.

Reviews

[Floydina White]

Loved the way you ended this one.

How fascinating, this poem.

Is there a real world basis for this poem? (i.e, did this happen to you?)