Not Like You Knew

It’s not as if you knew your life needed changing
What was it you used to bitch about?
What got you down?
That he didn’t make enough money?
That the house was always a wreck?
It’s not as if you knew your life needed changing
That one kiss under the awning of a Chinese restaurant
in the rain
could unleash
a whole new you
Change your life

Janice and her family moved to the country last year to change their life
They wanted a slower, natural, earthy, small town life
Her strong, smart husband built them a home overlooking a valley
where they could watch hawks and eagles
Janice and the boys learned to ride
They learned to ride horses
But then little Sam, his head started leaking
And 66 nights later
66 nights at children’s hospital
that’s how many nights her husband has slept
sprawled out on a chair next to Sam’s bed
funny, sweet, sassy Sam who razzes the nurses
Now Janice and the two other boys live that other life
the one they made the changes for

And even if you know what’s coming
The man in the walker coming out of the medical building today
How the walker got caught in the door
How I didn’t help him
But thought instead of my father
Able bodied but not forever
Because it’s not like you knew your life needed changing
But it must have
Because a kiss under an awning of a Chinese restaurant
in the rain
can set the whole thing off

**Inspired by Joan Logghe’s new book of poems called Rice

Ethics, order and timing

And so, because I am not a romantic
When I got together with my husband and the ballerina last weekend
limbs colliding, on our backs, in her bed
The candles, the wine
Her unauthorized breathing
The way her eyes closed and face clenched when she came
What it feels like to let go like that in front of another person
her lover’s wife, your husband’s lover
How three became one
how it was she who held me as I came
His mouth on me, her hands clutching my arm
How they both went quiet afterwards
Resting with me as if we’d all made that train wreck of a journey together

And we had

Because I am not a romantic
What occurred to me afterwards was this:

what are the ethics and the obligation as to where the husband finally lays his seed? Does he leave it in the wife to show her where his real love lies? Where does that seed need to come to rest?

Ethics, order and timing