by Nicole Koch

You do not do, you do not do
Anymore, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot.
-Silvia Plath

When was the last time you said I love you
to someone you hate? Not tonight, I bite my lips
closed, not me. I pick a hangnail as you melt
a cup of overflowing ice with Bacardi, rum and Coke,
hold the Coke, you tell me get up and put the DVD in
halfway through the first scene, prowling in from the kitchen
to make the occasional pounce on our family room couch,
I pick three hairs out. Your spirit is cupped in Tervis
plastic which promise to leave no halos on your favorite
wooden table, or not to sweat through war scenes or death.
You clench your plastic, I put untrimmed nails
into my palms and squeeze like I’m dehydrating lemons,
machinery screams as you let the dog out
to urinate or defecate, I don’t know why
you can’t just say piss or shit like
the rest of us, barking commands through the
smudged sliding glass, marching in, slaughtering
soliloquies, every night until you’re mumbling
in bed thinking you’re the real life version of them.

I remember when I learned to slow dance
alone, box stepping to solo melodies,
waiting for our twenty-four hour cinema
home to close. Someday someone will take me
away from you, your two left shoes, he will
put my right foot in front of my left and we’ll run from
movie star screens. Isn’t it hard to tell when stories end
and real life begins, but guess what? I love you.