From
A Fixed, Formal Arrangement
Les Figues Press 2008
Husband
My husband, doctor, his glassy eye, effervescent, a hook on a mirror, spent all year hoarding small codes, “Get over here,” loves medium sized dogs, me, says, “Promise me there is a chance that my being around will make you feel better,” I promise, then we get on an airplane, land, arrive in Los Angeles with a Broken, Broken, and he takes my hand, strangely, I have no fingers, “This hand,” he explains, “is nailed, its circumference,” and I can’t see out, “the veins,” he explains, but I really can’t see out, our productivity, copped, there’s fog, multiplicative, his expertise, dripping, and I love my Husband, Husband, Husband,
Clues
Cogency, emission of light or luminous substances, jocularity, noisy love, a romantic affair, noisy fierce emission of luminous affection, feeling like somebody who is loved, romantically, loving pluots, buying two pluots, making a point of buying two of everything, one for husband, one for you, reserving private basement space in your enflamed cardiac mansion for the absent third pluot,
Doctor
Symptoms in the morning include rescheduling of coffee dates like doctor’s appointments, calling up, hearing a soft tone, saying, “I think I’m going to have to cancel, can we reschedule, say, for Monday?” The tone is all wrong, but it’s too late, it’s okay, you think, this is just a receptionist, for what, you wonder, for my tiny sentimental coil, lodged there, between a paper pile and the same paper pile, it’s okay, I care about the mundane, ‘of the world’, Twist my coil, ‘I care about the mundane’, coil of the world, Eyes popping out of my coil, all over the floor, a million, trillion, more symptoms, all of us bonded together with solvent, in the office, bonded, skins dripping, all over the floor, can we reschedule, say, for Monday, the tone is all wrong, but it’s too late, too late, I am a receptionist, not really, but really, when you stop to think about it, I am,