Paper and Pens

Her feet once so light upon the stair

she never wore slippers, didn’t believe in them

so her flattening white arches would run

gentle across the decaying fibers

I would make eggs the way she liked

and she would sip coffee she never drank

until I came along, softly discuss the government

while I dribbled salt from my fingers;

Paint her nails a lavender shade, her only makeup

watch the way her fingers would straighten

to hold the paint while she talked of deals

corruption and past revolutions

while I would smoke and look out the windows

into all the green of the woods;

We’d walk in the hills, her new painted fingers

wrapped in my own and breathe the clean

of that aspen air, she’d kiss me and speak

how to keep air clean, who to pay off,

who needed to go, bills that needed to pass

while I would trace the clouds patterns

in the sky;

And me later with my paper and pens

and big ideas and well-read

and poem-writing and

interested in civil rights and history

and too proud of myself and my

understanding of economies-of-scale

and the complex nature of democratic socialism

vs Trotskyism vs Marxism vs American-ism

and college-educated and

too proud, too proud and

well aware of how the world ends

(no bang but a whimper)

I sat with my coffee and my whiskey and my

ears open but not listening to

a goddamn thing she said to me;

She is a much better person than

I will ever be.

Reviews

[John the Baptist]

This one has a lot of regret in it. The relationship of the speaker to the subject seems to have been an intimate one, but I have the feeling that person is no longer in the picture. Since the last lines indicate she is still living, I would say she is an ex-wife. The speaker is beating up on himself for inattentiveness, but painting someone's nails seems attentive to me. Regrets can occur when a void is felt, but they can easily become exaggerated. Perhaps time will provide greater perspective.

[JR]

Yes, ex-wife. Inattentive to the things that matter, attentive to the small details :)