The General to His Wife on Her Honeymoon

Steve — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 19:20:34 +0000

Alone over breakfast I treat news stories like a hiccup,
more brief and empty than burp or fart or bolo
cinching a fat and inconsequential neck. Now,
darling, I know I was mistaken to wage
war with your corpulent and lipstick-wearing brother,
but didn’t you tell me, your sweet and alcoholic
voice dripping over the line from afar,
how he coveted my island-beach cabana?
No matter, we bagged his hairy ass and did a triple lutz,
to boot (just for show, my double-named dolly).
Anyway, what I meant to say is your hips are like mangoes,
gold and round and sticky, sweet and bitten.
Since you broke your leg I’ve been overtaken by ennui;
your second husband still shells out my strange voodoo
so I’ll slip your luscious nurse a pink painkiller
and we’ll call it even. Everything seems to be coming
to an astral or even cosmological head, see:
our daughter’s billion-diamond-studded coffin—I mean,
wedding, and now your lovely trip, it seems sure
I’ll not be deposed. Instead we’ll rule forever,
my wrinkled, fragrant buttercup, the light of Burma,
designer frocked and pursed, the little general!
Tell that soft-faced actor-boy of yours that
your pocket-stars have crowned me pharaoh!
Fuck, I need a drink, it was a long day in the junta,
some upstart captains want to legalize chow-mein,
and then a monk burned himself, but anyway, I’m getting restless;
tonight I have a newspaper to shut down, a movie to watch
(I’m thinking Jaws). Don’t make me wait, I even miss your elbow—
teleport, telephone, telestich your pretty face to me!

Anti- » Heidi Sulzdorf Poetry

The General to His Wife on Her Honeymoon