I often fucked many men behind my husbands back
She said in slow whispering confessional tones
That seemed at odds with the blood and semen
Stained sheets we were tied up inside while the sun
Sweated us like onions on a dirty pan before adding
Us to some thick red paste and peeled plum tomatoes
With their skin removed and just the pulpy corpse
Left and she asked me if I could love her more then
The others I was fucking later that night when she
Went home to her husband and I thought about it
And had to tell her I knew nothing of love just hot
Thick red sauce and meatballs and beer and fucking
At which she laughed and said she was glad she knew
Which ones were the ones you married and which
Were the ones you wrapped in dirty stained sheets
And left behind for the maid to wash or burn. O. I said.
She left and drove back to Essen funnily enough as it
Was the last place anyone especially her husband would
Eat anything of and it was only me that kept her from getting
Fatter and fatter as I was the only one with an appetite
For loneliness I couldn't satiate with all the married women
And in the golden lit afternoon where the sun carried
Itself in my room and cast spells on the smoke snaring
Its own beautiful light I filled my small revolver with bullets
And held it to my head until the shouts died down as dusk
Lit up the world with my favourite light and tom waits
Bar room drawled and we drank to the dying of the night
Until another knock upon my door and another skinny woman
Looking for a feed of loneliness to shave inches off her waist
Came in the last bedroom I would ever know the smell of bullets.
copyright 2014
Brendan
McCormack |