The first thing I notice
is that you are no longer my lover
but the woman who constantly moans,
“What are we going to do?”
We still splurge on the morning newspaper
but, for now at least,
I toss aside the sport’s pages
to get at the anemic classifieds.
“No one’s hiring” replaces
the kiss on the cheek.
Once it hit you
that, for the time being at least,
you are the breadwinner
and you stood there shaking
in the kitchen,
imagining a great twister
cutting through this neighborhood,
jerking off the pieces
of this house,
sending them sprawling
across the county.
And then just the two of us here,
exposed, wet and cold,
you with your flimsy paycheck
from the Seven-Eleven
and me, years beyond whatever
it was you married,
stiff and robot-like,
screwing and tightening the air
where nuts and bolts
ought to be,
humming to the clatter
of an imaginary assembly line.
