Suffering Succotash

         

    This appeared in South Ash several hundred years ago

 

Let us enumerate some things which move you
(one, two, three, five—let’s only count the primes,
the ones that really count). Your daughter’s hands
stained to the wrist in peas and carrots, saying,
“Mommy, can you do this?” Your husband stopping
and getting back out of the car and coming back
to the house to say he won’t be home for dinner.
The thought of the lover you have never met
thinking of you and wondering what sound
you’d make if he turned you this way first, then that.
Your husband calling, saying, since they serve
fresh fish tonight on Burma Airlines, he
might miss dinner tomorrow, too, and if
Air Kampuchea takes his Mastercard,
he’ll send a postcard back from Angkor Wat.
The sight of your fingers telling you they are
your lover’s in extremity. The voice
you haven’t heard paying you that one praise
you always wanted not to have to seek.
The airline calling, asking if you are
the beneficiary whom he called
aloud to, somewhere over Bora Bora.
A footstep at the doorstep, at the door.
Your daughter asking if someone could please
change her, isn’t anyone going to change?