Dec

THINGS WE AGREED NOT TO SHOUT

Mom is dead. Dad is visibly melting. Again.
Bitter recriminations. Bitter infidelities. Bitter.
Streisand is on. Finnish curses on the firstborn
of everyone who held us back. My credit rating.
Your many catalogs of shame. Scrapbook time.

Do you remember where we sank the kindergarteners?

Infectious constipation. In our spare time,
we enjoy perfecting methods of evisceration.

Bingo. Also, fire. Let’s make a baby.

Not anymore. You feel kind of weird inside.

My brother’s indiscretions. My indiscretion
with your brother. That lost weekend in Vegas.
Landslide of therapy. Moving to another state. Again.

We are running out of America. Faster.
Right there. Good girl. Judas Priest lyrics.
Freebird. Woo. Random latitudes.

Imagined injuries. Getting tired of your meniscus.
Seriously. Pay it forward. Routing
numbers and decade by decade
delineations of your bra sizes. Beginning with the seventies.

You promised. I thought you were
asleep. I thought you wouldn’t mind.

Surprise.