-of beauty and a recollection of distress-

the midwest, and the night was clear and you were cranky.

you went out with the girls,–– a night on the town, but

beforehand, I watched you dress, curious as to why

you consciously chose to be with me.

I was mesmerized by your attitude in not realizing

the beauty of your reflection, brushing your jet-stone hair

with a smoothness as if you were brushing a measure of silk.

I waited at the face of the television for your return,

and when you did, the evening and its anticipation lost its clarity.

we went to bed at the same time. it was late. you were drunk.

you stank of coney island wieners with meat sauce, and extra onions.

the sour stench came from deep within your stomach, upward,

beginning at your wormy intestines, and outward as you snored,

wheezing through the coagulated interior hairs of your oily,

coney island wiener, meat-sauced infested exhalation.

I wanted to be Laszlo Toth, bopping your nose with a mallet just to keep

it quiet so's I might get some shuteye, but even under such distress,

I cautiously went to sleep believing your beauty would return to me

in the forgiving light of morning, and it did.

the coffee perked electrically, the eggs crackled in their olive-

oil bed, and as the turned-milk was poured into the sink's open drain,

the romance came back to me,–– shuffling through the kitchen portal

in pink fuzzy slippers, yawning, and yelling.