Nine Lives

She’s been married
nine times, she says
as she crosses her legs
and smiles at the
talk show shrink.

“I can always spot
husband material!”
she laughs, then
confesses that
“after number five,”
she started to
question her
abilities.

Maybe next time
she should
just get
a cat.

My love picks me plums

not just any plums, but beautiful black
Japanese plums. I say it’s to celebrate completing
our first year of marriage.

Never one to make a fuss, he just smiles and
jumps higher, reaching the uppermost branches,
passing me bushels and bushels of the dark juicy fruit
until they’re falling from my hands
and we’re both laughing,
blessèd, bound.

(I will file this moment away in my mind
for some day when, in heated argument,
I wish to throw plums at him).

Closer

There are no ordinary days.
Yes, coffee so often gets cold
before you drink it,
work gets trite and tedious,
traffic jams in the same place every day,
love and family fall into routine—

But look a little closer
in that rear view mirror:
There, in that car behind you.
That young girl, her face aglow;
She’s on her way to the hospital
waiting to get her cochlear implants—
waiting to hear birds sing,
a running stream,
her mother’s voice.

Or there,
in that long lineup at the grocery store.
See that woman in the tattered grey coat?
She’ll only be able to buy the milk.
Everything else will be put back
and she will walk out in shame;
her three hungry children
tagging along behind her.

Look there, at that big, beautiful home
with the blue shutters.
He’s just left her and their children.
Moved away; told her in a text message.
She’s feigning an “Everything’s Great” grin
for acquaintances on the street,
but inside, she’s broken.
How can he erase them
so easily, without emotion?
Erased like chalk-drawn hearts,
not the tiny, beating hearts
they once lulled to sleep.

Look again.
Objects in that mirror
are closer than they appear.

There are no ordinary days.
Not for you, not for me,
not for our angels.

'The Empty Bowl', taken on an "ordinary" day in Paris. HG Stewart.