She knows what she likes
sends it back when it arrives
with too much ice, tells the waiter
this is not a real drink.
He knows she’s right,
takes it away
two green olives, color of her eyes
like earrings she might wear
with a smart sweater
strung together
by a plastic sword.
She used to be my shrink
heard almost everything I’d think
knew me before I knew myself.
Retired now she’s become my friend,
we go out for dinner, I’m secretly giddy
to be with her this way, her voice
a part of me, etched into my memory.
I can vaguely remember all those years
sitting across from her on that itchy beige couch
my legs tucked safely underneath me, her face
absorbing the stain of my life:
panic attacks in Bloomingdale’s dressing room,
imagined fires, evacuations, phantom amputations,
tidal waves—in and out of the same revolving door
sticky with angst, year after year, what is it you fear,
and now we’re here, she’s out of the business,
my head still not clear, yet silent as the morning
after a blizzard, anxiety a muffled whisper,
faded like dried blood on a forgotten nightgown,
my problems like old clothes:
washed, softened, folded in a special drawer,
not ready to give away
but never to be put on again.