New Husbands

You have no wives. The spoon you left atop the stove is gathering ants. Your wireless networks and your traffic signs work perfectly. There are no more wild tigers. Your daughters have never known silence. You’re sons feel gypped. All the children meet at the end of the earth. Exchanging scraps of spirit in a bar. Tensed as if for orgasm. Having never been trained to desire survival, they savor small moments of synesthesia, laugh about bloody teeth, fancydance in the rain. Like earthquake victims, they enjoy a good kiss. An old-fashioned fuck against the wall. Your repetition of affectionate gestures ain’t doing the trick. Your skies still roil and break apart, allow you days of clarity. You don’t need a holy sign for the commencement of a great quest. Start the car. Your bluebirds paint swatches of speed in the air. Your air is overflowing with bluebird swatches. That’s how serious life is. Bees move very fast to stay still, while sea gulls stay still and spread their wings, letting the air currents do most of the work. Sometimes they just hover in place above the water, poking fun at the notion of hard-earned pleasure. The women at your work are anxious. Outside, gusts of slanted rain send all the flying animals to hiding. Airplanes demand their rightful passage through the storm cloud. The fragile engines in your parents’ hearts are breaking. Like deleted data, all your old dreams are still there, waiting to be retrieved or overwritten. Do you still remember that stage you cobbled together in your youth, where you and your then lover could lift eachother from the floor at once?