Cutting

She doesn’t understand the blank stare of the fishheads
in the sink, she doesn’t understand the unexpected whiff
of sex in the surprised air, the faucet’s water runs
like time through her fingers, her knife neatly severs
the sun-warm lemon, something about never happy,
something about happy now, now when they’re finally
comfortable, well-off even, despite the bother with his
bowels and her headaches, that’s the thanks you get
for twenty-five years, she doesn’t understand though
the word still ricochets around the room as his fisheyes
stare blankly through her, divorce he says again and
she reaches housewife-deftly for the larger knife.

.

(Previously published in Interim, 1994)