A Division of Labor
Richard Fein
I should have known, even when we were driving home;
the windows were opened, the ocean odors blew in, you asked
if the scent of the familiar would rush
over the antennas and calm our blue-green bug,
and if we might pull over and set it free.
I should have known;
by the time it took you to arrange and rearrange
the pots, pans, butter, spices and spoons,
over and over, that the job would be mine.
With an embarrassed smile you opened your hands.
Like a windup toy its spindly legs jerked forward.
I seized it, up and over into the pot.
And above I held the boiling kettle.
I turned from you to hide my slight wincing,
my face near the rising steam.
A second, two, then directly over the head.
“To kill the brain, the rest is all reflex,” I reassured.
Our meal turned as bright red
as the grasshopper I once burnt
when I was one of old King Lear's wanton boys
who picked apart bugs for sport.
Later,
candlelight, soft music on the tape, butter over cracked opened shells,
we scooped the meat and drank wine.
Across from me, a steely look as you vowed,
“Next time by myself, no more squeamish silly girl.”
But I thought
if you were silly, then I wish you'd always be silly
in that way.
