…
She lived for her lies.
The lies had a life of their own.
They kept the secret flame alight:
The flame excited her imagination.
They burned incense to her passion,
Her passion never spent in any man’s arms.
Her passion was spent in intrigue,
In more veiled innuendoes,
In whispers to another woman’s shell-like ear,
In inhabiting the smell of another woman’s body,
In touching another woman’s breast lightly,
Fingers like moths poking another’s
Crevices, crying,
Weeping, drinking white wine
Paid for by her husband’s child support.
Nightly these women met to bemoan
And bewail the escape of the men
They never loved.
What they loved was the status.
What they loved was the money.
What they desired was each other,
That intensity – woman to woman –
The warm legitimate embrace of
The Jacuzzi,
The familiar wet warm smell
Of other women,
The absence of penis,
The celebration of pudenda,
The absence of self and other,
The presence of self and mother,
Women’s endlessly pliable
Buyable bodies,
The cruise down to the mall,
The raid on
The dress shops,
Rings for lying fingers,
Hats for long-dyed hair,
Shoes and pairs of shoes
For feet that rat tat tat
Up the corridors in anger,
Slap the children, kick the cat,
My husband left me,
What do you think of that?
