By slug
Date: 23 August 2000

On being your woman

The Roman wife –
 sensuality and complacency – 
   confined to a bedroom.
       Background noise. Easily replaced and easily used up.
   I should be vibrant, not vapid.
   I should tremble and quake,
     Instead I sit and ache. Writing words to sing in my song-bird voice,
            The voice of a road-runner, or 
                    Something equally unpalatable.
                               I feel unpalatable.
             Taste me – I’m coppery, it comes from the hair.
      I smell faintly of brown sugar, freckles sprinkled over me.
                   But you’ll never know.
                   You refuse to taste.
            Like apple juice at a wine-tasting.
                 I sit in the corner, ignored and unwanted.
     I should leave, and find someone else.
   I should walk away and let you be…your alcoholic stupor would never appreciate my 
            Washington crispness.
              But you peeled away my skin once, and you 
                        Sucked on my juices.
             You drank me in and you danced around me.
                 For a moment I was useful and alive….
     But Life knocked on the door
                 And came to take you away
     “Wait here, I’ll be back for you….I promise…keep room for me…”
             
it’s cold without you.
       Your warmth only leaves me colder.
             But there are things you do not know – 
                                   And this is why I wait.