“Ok, Then”
You are gone. Ok, then.
You did not leave the morning after packing
in the night, when I wouldn’t fight.
You did not love in the morning after packing
in the night, when I couldn’t answer,
didn’t have words for your “Why do you care?”
There is a palm tree growing
in my new bathtub
but we are waiting to see what happens.
The heart-shaped scab
that tattooed my ring finger for ages
is almost completely grown out.
You’d put another decoration there,
but I don’t want it, don’t know
why I don’t like kissing you anymore,
your face a strange bird in my face.
Ok, then, maybe I don’t like kissing.
There is a matchmaker floating
outside my balcony
but we are waiting to see what happens.
But look, you named me.
No one else could,
no one else would want to.
My parents did it wrong—
I don’t blame them.
They didn’t know me.
Only you have known me
well enough to name me.
Ok, then. That will never
in either of our lifetimes
happen again.
There is a vat of holy water
boiling on my stove
but we are waiting to see what happens.
The widowed waxess
who touches me
with gentle purpose
says I should go to the beach
every day, she would go to the beach
every day if she had my body.
Ok, then. You should join a dating site,
I tell her, offering to make
an account, it’s free, let’s do it now.
Maybe in a few years, she says,
when I’m ready.
When I buy a black bikini
and go to the beach? I say.
There is a seagull tapping
on her office window
but we are waiting to see what happens.
It doesn’t hurt.
Sometimes I’m hurt
and don’t know it.
Once I burned myself
with a cigarette
and didn’t know it until I itched
and looked down from the road
at my jeans, freshly polka-dotted
with fire and ash. Ok, then.
There is a fire
in my new shoes
but I am waiting to see what happens.
We went to the beach
in the bikini that’s as old now
as I was when we met.
A greeting squadron of
leaping dolphins walked with us
and I could smell the salt,
could feel the sun’s warmth
in ways I had forgotten,
been numb to,
felt only the pain of missing
the ability to feel.
Ok, then. The cold at last has cleared
from my nose, from my skin.
There is a tornado spinning out
from the warmth of this joy
and the cold of my fear
that I will see my father here—
the tragic hero returns, tolerably disguised,
home to the city she never knew.
Is unrecognized for her own good,
and chaos ensues as we knew it would—
but we are waiting to see what happens.
You gave me
what I think must be
the happiest moment of my life,
the day I came home
from another man’s arms
and you had decided you loved me.
I was afraid you were going to kill me,
the love in your face hot and closed
the love in your face familiar and strange
the love in your face a gust of gale
picking up my umbrella
and me with it,
carrying me a small distance up and away
but not too far.
Ok, then. Storms end.
But we are waiting to see what happens.
