When I Show Rosemerry My Home for the First Time

In every room I point out the flaw:
discolored spots on walls
I could have painted better,
a leaking bathtub hot water knob,
crumbling grout between green tiles,
dust on my son’s piled dresser,
the unfinished edges of a shelf.
I am only noticing what is beautiful,
she responds, and I realize
what I have done,
what I do, walking her through
the house of me.
Look here, I say, over soup and rice,
at the way desire is eating my face.
Do you hear how I am becoming loud
carrying a house and three kids
and 52 students and one gallery
and a town of hungry poets?
And later, over her homemade rye:
See how easily I am high jacked
by barking dogs and distant trains?
And finally, in the kitchen doorway,
my last confession:
I am becoming bony and thin-skinned,
which translates: I am slowly dying.
This time Rosemerry doesn’t respond.
This time she lets silence answer.

2012