On marriage

I heard on the radio this morning that a bad marriage can actually make you sick. Literally. Of course, heart disease as a result of stress is no surprise, right? And the study was on a group of British professionals. How 'bout studying an American part-time-stay-at-home, art studio owner? I'd like to see those results!

In other, more poetic news, I just started reading Notarikon by Catherine Bowman. Part of the book is a one-thousand-line poem written in one hundred ten-line stanzas, each line made up of ten syllables. It is part homage to a ten-year marriage. Hmm... marriage again.

I was inspired to write the following poem. I know I'm not supposed to wait for inspiration, but hey, it came. I wrote it. Comments & critique, please!

Hurry, Hurry, Step Right Up

Somehow we have passed the seven-year-itch
without incident. Afterbite, soothing aloe, avoiding
dense shrubbery, trios of three--who can explain luck?

Every morning I imagine the neighbor-dad
watching me wiping, moistruizing, blow-drying.
Each night, I think I see the long-legged jocks

at the school behind us, illuminated in one lone street light,
lathering their virgin stubble in the same round rhythm
my hands follow as I wash my face.

You used to come to bed
with me, brush your teeth beside me,
bend and spit together. Caress, foam, spit, rinse.
Then you came
to bed at eleven, twelve.
Now it is one.
One.
One.
One.

Just this morning I heard from a cartoon wife,
"Some hats you wear. Some hats you cook."
I think tonight I will boil your hat,
shrink to fit,
hand it to you at midnight,
declare a new year,
twenty-one days before all-hallows-eve.

Here's your hat.
Here's the door.
Hurry. Hurry. Hurry.