The Morning After

You stand at the counter, pouring boiling water

over the French roast, oily perfume rising in smoke.

And when I enter, you don’t look up.

You’re hurrying to pack your lunch, snapping

the lids on little plastic boxes while you call your mother

to tell her you’ll take her to the doctor.

I can’t see a trace of the little slice of heaven

we slipped into last night—a silk kimono

floating satin ponds and copper koi, stars falling

to the water. Didn’t we shoulder

our way through the cleft in the rock of the everyday

and tear up the grass in the pasture of pleasure?

If the soul isn’t a separate vessel

we carry from form to form

but more like Aristotle’s breath of life—

the work of the body that keeps it whole—

then last night, darling, our souls were busy.

But this morning, it’s like you’re wearing a bad wig,

disguised so I won’t recognize you

or maybe so you won’t know yourself

as that animal burned down

to pure desire. I don’t know

how you do it. I want to throw myself

onto the kitchen tile and bare my throat.

I want to slick back my hair

and tap-dance up the wall. I want to do it all

all over again—dive back into that brawl,

that raw and radiant free-for-all.

But you are scribbling a shopping list

because the kids are coming for the weekend

and you’re going to make your special crab cakes

that have ruined me for all other crab cakes

forever.