Subject: dissolve (poem)
From: "Kathleen J. Kramer" 

Dissolve

I'm sitting not quite in front of the window, wooden shutters slightly spread, no . . . they're all the way open with blue and white calico curtains, yeah, and it's raining . . . but warm and very green outside. We're at his summer home, no . . . it's a cabin, and his name is Jeremiah and I'm some crazy woman he found with slit wrists. We don't speak the same language and have the best sex, ever, no . . . well kinda, keep the rain and the green and I'm still at the window. The cabin smells like bacon and nobody's heard of cholesterol. My hair's pulled back except two pincurls and my tight gingham dress makes my tatas look as good as fresh-baked bread. But it's not a cabin, it's a cafe . . . by a train station and I've never been married but am greatly admired. He's some saddle tramp I see ridin' up as I prick my finger with my sewing needle, no . . . it's 1942 and I'm still by the window but he's a crop duster and I'm cutting onions so he won't know that my tears are caused by the shirt clinging to his chest, sleeves folded neatly above each bicep bulging as his large hand lifts my fragile chin while I accidentally squeeze my paring knife into my thumb. I look into his brown eyes, shadowed by the rim of his aged hat, no . . . he's been raised proper and left it at the door, and his hair is parted perfectly on the side, no . . . it's parted in the center and falls in his wide eyes. He needs a good cut and a shave and I'm just the girl to do it, no . . . I resist because no man buys the cow if he can get the milk for free! And I run, hands in my apron, and he grabs my elbow, spins me to him. The onions fall to the floor in slow motion . . . He pulls me close and we exchange a look that dries my eyes. His lips part slowly, he begins to speak, *Nooooo . . .*


copyright 1994 kathy jo kramer