| Ode to My Wife’s Panties
Roses on silk, red eye patch, you mask too tiny to disguise: I am on the bed, Neruda’s “Every Day You Play” on the open page between my legs, this is the poem closing “I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.” And my wife walks through. Wearing only you and the baby nursing on her chest. Remember, Panties, remember pregnancy? remember last year where biology itself was birth control and I would pull your smooth strings down her soft skin, across the kiss of ankle bones to drop you by the bed, the couch, the sink, the car, the cash register, the beautifully-trimmed lawn at the State Capital, your touch sweet foreplay, you bright flag flown for me to find comfort in; and before that, remember honeymoon, remember the drama of arguments about something we’ve forgotten, but I still remember after, seeing you like a wink, like a secret signal that all is clear, that this is time to make up and to kiss; oh, Panties, I just want to be forgiven, to forgive that way; but she comes to bed and there are no raised voices, no slammed doors, all regrets left in some other house; we, new parents, we just haven’t slept enough, not last night or the night before or last week or last month or, or, or; I reach quietly to touch you, fall asleep, my palm against your cheek. |
Matt's new book, Things We Don't Know We Don't Know, is available from Backwaters Press.