by Bronwen Wallace
The woman in this poem
live in the suburbs
with her husband and two children
each day she wait for the mail and
once a week recives
a letter from her lover
who lives in another city
writes of roses warm patches
of sunlight on his bed
Come to me he pleads
I need you and the woman
reaches for the phone
to dial the airport
she will lieave this afternoon
her suitcase packed
with a few light clothes
But as she is dialling
the woman in this poem
remembers the pot-roast
and the fact that it is Thursday
she thinks of how her husband's face
will look when he reads her note
his body curling sadly toward
the empty side of the bed
She stops dialling and begins
to chop onions for the pot-roast
but behind her back is the phone
shapes itself insistently
the number for the airline reservations
chanting in her head
in an hour her children will be
home from school and after that
her husband will arrive
to kiss the back of her neck
while she thickens the gravy
and she knows that
all through dinner
her mouth will laugh and chatter
while shw walks with her lover
on a beach somewhere
She puts the onion in the pot
and turns toward the phone
but even as she reaches
she is thinking of
her daughter's piano lessons
her son's dental appointment
Her arms fall to the side
and as she stands there
in the middle of her spotless kitchen
we can see her growing
old like this
and wish for something to happen anything
to happen we could have her go
mad perhaps and lock herself
in the closet crouch there
for days her dresses withering
around her like cast-off skins
or maybe she could take
to cruising the streets at night
in her husband's car
picking up teenage boys
and fucking them in back seat
we can even imagine
finding her body
dumped in a ditch somewhere
on the edge of town
The woman in this poem offends us
with her useless phone and the persistant
smell of onions we regard her as we do
the poorly calculated overdose
who lies in a bed somewhere
not knowing how her life drips
through her drop by measured drop
we want to think of death
as something sudden
stroke or the leap
that carries us over the railing
of the bridge in one determined arc
the pistol aimed precisely
at the right part of the brain
we want to hate this woman
but mostly we hate knowing
that it is like this
our thoughts stiff fingers
tear at again and again
when we stop in the middle
of an ordinary day and
like the woman in this poem
begin to feel our own deaths
rising slow within us.
---------------
I've adored this poem since I found it looking for poetry for English class about a year ago, I really like what it's saying and how it inspires you in a way that is so uncommon. Anyway, I don't want to say much else, but I'd love to hear anyone elses opinions on it
