Because sweetheart, this life
is a born escape artist,
a migrating fever,
a convict tattooed in invisible ink,
without mercy or nostalgia. – Tony Hoagland
Dear, you tell me you hope
for another 25 years together.
You, who used to skew toward ballerina-looking
lawyers with nary a hair nor argument astray.
You, the noisy admirer of stoicism
waving toward my shoes in admonishment
about the impracticality of carpeting
the world, you wrapped in a blanket
of hermeneutic suspicion, who nonetheless
equates any minor flaw with loss of full humanity−
you tell me I should just shoot you if
you ever 1) limp or 2) go mildly deaf−
you and your paradoxes are infinite:
confusing, amusing as kittens.
Because, let me tell you, such flaws
will grow, will overpopulate like tribbles,
like haystacks of books
and grain siloes of clothes:
a humiliation of abundance,
the digging out of which
could well result in the burial
of the digger. Meanwhile,
the losses peck away their
own claims until it is hard
to recognize−like something moldy
overlooked in the refrigerator−what’s left.
I told you when we met how I hated
the pressure of the term soulmate,
and capitalistic compulsions of Valentine
or Sweetest Days, let alone the big white dress,
like a coconut cake impersonating a woman
or a Christmas tree flocked with chemical toxins.
Because I never expect a lack of trouble;
tennis-hop to be ready for disaster, I request
you wear a helmet in the car, to prevent
head trauma, prompting your eyeroll.
I told Kathy, when she asked
if we’d ever make things
permanent, that permanence,
like perfection, is 1) not a thing
and 2) if it were, we’d only
notice once it was not,
say if I choked on a chunk
of delicious crusty bread
at Osteria Via Stato and
our union and myself alike
pronounced impermanent in retrospect.
But at least she died doing what she loved
with the one she loved.
Julie Benesh
Julie Benesh is the author of the poetry collection Initial Conditions and the poetry chapbook About Time. Her work has been published in Tin House, Another Chicago Magazine, Florida Review, and many other places. She earned an MFA from Warren Wilson College and received an Illinois Arts Council Grant. She lives in Chicago and holds a PhD in human and organizational systems.
