WE’RE NOT RUDE
WE’RE BUSY
PLEASE LET US DO OUR JOB
rubber-pink-finger points
cans, bottles—here
Gatorade empties rifled away—NO money for these
push the hair strands from your blue eyes
from your tee with the rainbow cat
rubber-pink-finger fires the final bottle
thank you, I smile
your lips don’t shift
more customers enter, I exit
with one 20—and two questions
do you own a rainbow cat?
do your blue eyes brighten when you smile?
hope you’re all managing the humidity
am:)
decades through the doors
truckin’ up the steps
pushin’ at the walls
like floppin’ fishes
land-slappin’ the earth
swimmin’ up a universe
that in the end — always wins
drove by this shiny building with a sign that’s seen better pay periods –
an ironic image in the saddest way possible
after a brief photo moment, words rolled from my penny pencil
I’ve listed a few benchmarks based on years of experience for you-my friends, to help assess the status of your own unions. I personally use these common situations to answer the question: How do you know if your husband still likes you? Feel free to use the same criteria where applicable…
Your younger-married version of a healthy fish dinner – frying canned tuna, frozen mixed vegetables and mustard together is met with a fork and a smile (he might admit disgust years later).
He overcomes the enormous disappointment of marrying into large Italian family where only two people enjoy cooking and neither one of them is you (you fry canned tunafish).
He allows you to pick a tiny pimple on the tip of his nose. For the next several weeks, he roams the world with a scab the size of a pencil eraser on his face.
He does not get angry when you hand him his freshly-laundered, leather wallet complete with soggy money and warped business cards.
He is supportive when you’re temporarily replaced by an insane amalgam who calls herself ‘first time mommy.’
You request drawer dividers to separate your numerous socks and he builds them.
He rubs your back whenever you say it’s sore, even though you complain that his back is “sooooo much bigger,” when he asks the same of you.
When you (both) forget your Anniversary and it’s no big deal, because you consider yourselves the most intimate of friends above and beyond any other titles.
To summarize: Your husband still likes you if he can recall what life was like before he met you, and he still chooses scabbed noses and fried tunafish.
anntogether 