But if no baby arrived,
then the nest her body had woven
would get flushed out through her vagina.
And she would need to use a tampon to catch it.
“What will the nest look like?” she asked.
“It will look…red,”
I said. “Like blood?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Like blood.”
And when
she folded herself into my arms
and asked if it would hurt,
I told her that it wouldn’t.
And hoped
that my answer
would turn out
to be true.
IT CAN’T BE PMS
So call me curmudgeonly,
but I do not like it
when my morning run
is brought to a
halt
by the mud-caked paws
of Brandy’s latest rescued canine
who pounces uninvited onto my shins
while Brandy giggles
and says, “Sorry. Long leash.”
Like isn’t it cute how intrusive
her slobbering dog is?
There are some days
when it seems to me
that the whole world
is on too long a leash.
RUDE AWAKENING
While waiting in line at the grocery store,
I glance at the cover of Glamour and see:
“Happy and Sexy at 20, 30, and 40!”
Wait just a hotter-than-thou minute!
I think to myself.
What about all us happy, sexy fifty-year-olds?
I gnash my teeth
and flip the magazine over on the rack
so that the cover’s facing in.
A second later,
when it’s my turn to pay,
the buff young guy working the register
does something as unexpected
as a flying pig:
he winks at me.
Did you see that, Glamour?
He winked at me!
Who’s happy and sexy now, huh? Huh?
I press my money into the hunky cashier’s hand,
with a seductive smile
and a flirty flutter of my lashes.
He gives me the once over,
then flashes me a sly grin and offers me something
that no man’s ever offered me before:
the
senior
discount.
IS IT A BAD SIGN?
Is it a bad sign
if you get offered
your first senior discount
twelve years
before you’re actually
old enough to receive it?
Or does it simply mean
that the jerk working the register
has shit for brains?
TO THE ONE-POUND BAG OF OREOS I JUST BOUGHT:
It’s so sad
to think
that just moments
from now
you
will be gone
and I’ll
be a cow.
I AM NOT ADDICTED TO EMAIL
Granted,
I’ve been sitting here at my computer
for well over two hours now
and I’ve only just begun to write this poem.
But that’s not because I’m addicted to email.
That’s because I had to read my newsletter
from The Overwhelmed Daughters of Mothers
with Polymyositis (which totally bummed me out).
So then I had to read the one about how
to beat the blues by shopping the CVS sale.
And I know I promised myself I’d only spend
fifteen minutes checking my email, but
someone I vaguely knew in college Googled me
and it was no small task to fill her in
on the last thirty years of my life.
Plus, how was I to know,
when Alice emailed me to ask me my opinion
of the guys who’ve been winking at her
to read all their profiles?
Then, I finally settled down to work.
And I was on a roll—the poetry pouring from
me like lava from an active volcano—
when my computer made that little sound,
that little rusty-mailbox-squeaking-open sound.
And I wasn’t going to open it.
Really. I wasn’t.
But I guess my hand must have slipped
because suddenly my email in-box
was sitting right there on my screen.
So I figured
I might as well
take a quick peek at it—
you know, just in case
it was something really urgent.
And it turned out to be from Roxie.
Asking me, in what I thought
was an unnecessarily snippy tone,
why I still haven’t sent her
my manuscript.
PEPTO ABYSMAL
Samantha was not exactly thrilled
when Michael volunteered to be a chaperone
for her choral group’s May Day concert trip. But I was.
My mouth was practically watering
while the two of them
were packing up today
to head to Sacramento.
I could almost taste the delicious silence
I’d be dining on all weekend;
the delectable freedom I’d have
to write from morning till night.
I licked my lips at the thought
of disconnecting the Internet,
unplugging the telephone,
and totally focusing on my work.
With the house next door still
mercifully vacant, there’d even be enough quiet
for me to sit outside under our pepper tree
and write, if I chose to…
But a few minutes
after Michael and Sam drove off,
Alice called to tell me that United was having
a last-minute sale on flights to Cleveland.
Which is why
I am sitting here on the red-eye,
dining on a stale Wetzel’s Pretzel
and a bag of Cheetos,
on my way to surprise my mother.
SATURDAY MORNING
I check into a Holiday Inn,
grab a taxi to the hospital,
dash to the gift shop to buy some roses,
then head upstairs to see my mother.
When I peek into her room,
I’m relieved to see that she looks
a little better than I thought she would—
thinner, and sort of ragged, but okay.
Though when I walk in, she doesn’t even
seem particularly surprised to see me.
Nor does she seem
particularly happy to see me.
She says, “Tell the nurse I need her desperately.”
“What do you need her for, Mom?”
“I need her to hold my hand.”
“I’ll hold your hand.”
I reach for her fingers, but she pulls away.
“No,” she says, “I need the nurse to do it.”
“But why, Mom?”
“Because she’ll do it differently.”
I’m trying not to feel hurt, and trying
to decide if I should actually call her nurse,
when my mother’s physical therapist shows up
to work with her on her walking.
Even with the therapist firmly gripping her elbow,
and a nurse’s aide following along
right behind her with a wheelchair,
my mother is terrified.
She keeps crying out,
shaking her fist,
insisting that the therapist
&nb
sp; bring her back to her bed.
“If I fall down and break my hip,” she says,
“I’ll die of pneumonia, and then I’ll sue you!”
Which might even be funny,
if it wasn’t so terrible.
LATER ON, BACK AT THE HELLIDAY INN
I’m curled up on the musty bed,
fixating on the fact that my mother
doesn’t even seem to care that I’ve come
all this way to visit her.
I’m lying here,
trying not to breathe the stagnant air,
staring at the awful painting on the wall,
wishing that Michael were here.
If Michael were here he’d make
some wise-ass crack about that painting.
He’d help me to see the humor in all this.
He’s always been the best at that…
And suddenly I’m overcome with
the need to hear his voice—the soothing
timbre of it, the all-is-well-ness of it,
the Michael-ness of it.
I start rooting around in my purse
for my phone, thinking that I honestly
don’t know what I’d do without that guy…
I mean, sure, he can be a pain sometimes.
But, then again, so can I.
I can be a royal pain in the butt…
I’m lucky he even puts up with me.
And I need to tell him that—right now!
But I can’t find my damn phone…
I rifle through my purse, gripped now by
an overwhelming urge to apologize to Michael
for every mean thing I’ve ever said or done.
And when I finally dig out my phone
and dial my beloved’s number—
it goes straight
to voice mail.
DAMN!
He probably turned his phone off
during Samantha’s concert
and then forgot to turn it back on.
He’s always doing that.
So I call Samantha instead.
She tells me she’s having an amazing time.
She tells me her solo today was awesome.
She tells me to give Grandma a huge hug for her.
And I promise her that I will.
Then I ask her to put her dad on the line.
But she says his room is down the hall,
so she’s not sure if he’s back yet.
“Back from where?”
“From dinner.”
“Didn’t he eat with you?”
“No. He went out with Brandy.”
Brandy…? My stomach clenches.
“You mean…Tess’s mom?”
“Do we know any other Brandys?” she says.
I force a laugh at Sam’s quip.
Then I say, “I didn’t know
she was up there with you guys.”
“She’s the other chaperone,” Sam says.
“She recruited Dad. Didn’t he tell you?”
No.
He did not.
I HANG UP AND PUNCH IN MICHAEL’S NUMBER
It goes
straight to voice mail.
Again.
I try to ignore the images
that come gushing
into my mind—
Michael and Brandy at a tiny table
in a romantic restaurant…
Michael’s eyes fixed on hers…
Brandy’s lashes fluttering…
her thick red hair glowing
in the candlelight…
Brandy’s knees shifting
under the table
to press against his…
And that’s
when I notice
the rhythmic thumping sound,
the ecstatic moans
pouring in through the skin-thin wall
from the room next door.
With trembling fingers,
I dial Michael’s number again.
But it goes straight to freaking voice mail!
So I do the only thing
I really can do
under the circumstances:
I call room service and ask them
to bring me up a massive slice of mud pie—
pronto!
ON SUNDAY MORNING
Michael finally calls me back
and apologizes for not phoning
the night before.
He says he went out to dinner
and then he had to monitor the hotel corridor
to make sure there were no shenanigans.
He says he’s really sorry, but by the time
he remembered to turn his phone back on
it was two in the morning, Cleveland-time.
I don’t tell him
I was wide awake
at 2 a.m.—
lying in bed trying to block out
the orgasmic groans of my bionic neighbors,
who were still going at it.
I don’t tell him
that I tossed and turned
all night long.
And I don’t ask him
why he neglected to mention
that his dinner companion
was Brandy.
WHY DON’T I ASK HIM THIS?
Because I am sure
that it simply slipped
his mind.
I am sure
that I’m making way too big a deal
out of this.
I am sure
that absolutely nothing happened
between my husband and…that woman.
I mean,
she’s happily married.
And so are Michael and I.
I am sure…
BUT, REALLY
Did I come to Cleveland
to drive myself bonkers
worrying about my husband
having a torrid affair?
Hell no!
I came here to visit my mother.
So I grab a cab
and head over to the hospital.
But the rest of my day
zooms downhill fast.
I don’t feel
like talking about it.
Suffice it to say
that the time I spend with my mother
is about as satisfying
as a bowl of cold chicken soup.
She doesn’t
take the slightest
comfort
from my presence.
The only good thing about being here
this weekend is that Dr. Hack is out of town.
So at least I don’t have to endure
that ulcer-inducing chuckle of his…
When I head to the airport
on Sunday night,
I feel as if I’ve run a marathon
and didn’t even make it
to the finish line.
IN THE TAXI ON THE WAY HOME FROM THE AIRPORT
I make up my mind
not to talk to Michael about Brandy.
Because I already know
exactly what he’ll say if I do.
He’ll say that jealousy
is a useless emotion.
This is because Michael doesn’t have
a single jealous bone in his body.
In fact, Michael is such
a thoroughly un-jealous type
that he could walk in on me—
nude, in bed, with my lover
(if I had one,
which, of course, I don’t)
and if I told Michael that we were
just playing Scrabble, he’d believe me.
So, I will not talk to Michael
about Brandy.
IT’S PAST MIDNIGHT WHEN I FINALLY GET HOME
I’m searching my purse
for my keys
when the front door swings open.
There stands Michael in his nightshirt,
his paint-speckled hair adorably tousled,
beaming at me like a sleepy sun.
“Welcome home, world traveler!” he says,
spreading his arms wide
and sweeping me into a hug.
Then he dips me back and kisses me—
like he’s trying to reenact that famous photo
of the sailor kissing the nurse in Times Square.
He’s kissing me
like a man
who has truly missed his wife.
He’s kissing me
like a man
who worships his wife.
He’s kissing me
like a man who would never
cheat on his wife…
Or is he kissing me like a man
who doesn’t want his wife
to suspect he’s having an affair—
like a man
who’s as guilty
as sin?
THE NEXT DAY