Holding a .45 to the Forehead of the Woman Who Stole Her Husband, Rhetta James Opens up
I’m starting to get forehead wrinkles.
Yes, I am.
Look. Right now.
Watch.
You see? Up here?
I have them.
My mascara gave them to me.
Why is that not listed as a side-effect?
To properly apply, open eyes wide.
Opening eyes wide may lead
to wrinkling of the forehead
which may become permanent.
Mother would say a gal gets them
from cigarettes she smoked on the roof,
from barreling out into the old field
behind the house before lathering
with SPF 50.
She wanted me to have skin as pale
as a baby’s bottom.
If I had your skin, I wouldn’t think
about purchasing products
with ingredients like
haloxyl,
retinol,
peptide,
strivectin:
words like biological agents,
war-hungry bacterium.
These for improved
follicular growth,
elasticity,
and firmness.
Maybe I wouldn’t have gotten them,
if I had your life:
two children,
not just one husband,
but TWO,
money in the bank,
a Moroccan au pair.
But, you know,
It’s OK.
I can get rid of anything with Botox.
Return to the Womb
All dolled up—
fur that shines
with cleanliness,
new collar,
crisply pink—
the dog
named for my mother,
spends her time
eating the heads
off my flowers,
peeing on my weeds.
My mother
is gone.
Mother never learned
to love through listening,
practiced silence.
She wanted to give:
advice, solutions, tissues—
anything to end
troubling feelings
and her proximity to them.
Any pain I experienced,
she felt
viscerally,
as if my cuts and scrapes
fired in her womb
so painfully,
that she needed to do
anything, anything
to put them out.
Even in death her body
still aches with mine,
our bodies
one again.
