The Many Ways To Describe A Wife

She the better part of a Thursday.

She the sag wire and the juice run through it –
she every porchlight, every red dot speckle
on screens too big and sleeps too small.

She the snooze alarm.

She the copper Chardonnay
on the back of my tongue
lapping at some old kidney stone —
some plump liver soon to rust.
She be the death of me.

She the murmured dream, the blue
and the blue eyes crying in half spoken dawns.

She the crab chattered claw fist castanet
in some unheard flamenco stew.

She the grey crust snow on snivelling lawns.
She the frost gone lichen
that spurns the pane,
the long hair tail wag
flagged in a drain.

She the one lost shoe,
clung to the paint.
She the gray ditch water
in the cup of a saint.

She the furrow and seed
stacked before spring.
She the lash with no whip,
a donkey done need.

She the echo, the lightning,
the fever and pitch,
the fury and few,
the darn and the stitch.
She the snag in a bobbin,
the turn of a spool,
the crack in the ceiling
and soft settled dew.

Image: Fleur on Unsplash