or winter retreat, I’d like someone else
to tend to my fears. Here, I want to say,
to my neighbor Walter, just keep them in a box
in the basement till I get back.
They don’t eat much, mostly each other.
They keep their own company.
No need to mist their roots or talk to them
at night. They are nothing
if not healthy. I’ll be at the beach
or a cabin in the woods. I’ll be on Venus
taking the waters, floating lovely
in my gossamer gown. I’ll be asleep
for ten thousand years. I’ll take no
calls and never bathe.
Light and air will fill my body.
My mind will grow
moss. I will think
white thoughts.
Here’s my husband’s number,
though he can’t take them either.
He has too many of his own as it is.
We spent years shoving our particular boxes
back and forth across the kitchen table,
scratching the Formica and damning each other.
He would try to stab mine with male guilt
and I practically loved his to death.
In time we fashioned them
into complicated centerpieces
and stationed them above the fireplace.
But after years of walking past them
they lost their appeal, required too much
dusting and explanations to guests.
We finally packed them away, stifled their muffled protest
under excelsior and hoped they died a nun’s death.