ON DREAMING OF MY WIFE

All love is a form of violence,

a domestic beat

in the heart

as much as the head, a strike to the only

thing we find vital, our safety. But that sounds so

scared, which might mean I am finally

house broken,

after all these years of really trying,

spent learning to wipe the toilet seat,

open the door, to provide —

I have begun to believe my abuelita,

who believed our bodies were not built to be comfortable

but to comfort others, as our minds

were not made for ideas

but to catalogue groceries. I have been told

that love is giving orders. Last night I dreamt

I was a feudal lord under a red pagoda heating

a kettle of tea with my wife.

Your own heart condemns you, I said with each sip of tea.

I do not condemn you, she said with each sip of tea.

After waking, I felt proud,

having reached a new level of fidelity

because she was actually in my dream.

I looked at her as a Romantic poet looks at trees.

To think in grunts and finger points,

admittedly, is not beyond me.

Neither is groveling. Or regret.

These fighting techniques, I’ve mastered.

Because she was naked and dangled in sleep,

I felt horrible, knew I was,

like it or not, intentional or not, just one man

in a succession of men

who had stopped her from breathing

by kissing her,

by placing my weight atop her,

in the name of protection.

I indicted myself, as you might indict a young couple

arguing in front of a library, neither of them dressed very well

or looking happy because of the summer heat

and books pinned by their elbows,

he pulling her arm, bringing her closer,

twisting her wrist

when her voice ventured a little too loud, a little too far

beyond the yard.