Photo by Alexis Rhone Fancher
My wife is getting dressed,
rushing off to see her clients.
She puts a top on that comes down past her navel,
barely covering her pubic hair.
But when she sits on the bed to pull up socks,
the chemise rises up, exposing hair between her legs.
She puts one leg up, resting her heel on the bed’s edge.
Her legs a few inches apart.
Her pubic hair and mound clearly visible.
It’s enough.
This altar. This sacred, secret, sanctified,
whatchamacallit.
I stop by the TV and ask her
when she’s coming home,
do I pick up Josh today,
are we going to David & Gina’s for dinner on Saturday,
should I get bread and milk at J-Market
or what?
“What,” she says.
I’m talking, she’s got her head down working on the sock,
no, I think it’s panty hose or tights,
something like that,
something complicated that requires her full attention
I’m talking but I’m really looking at her pubic hair, her sacred
whatchamacallit, that is . . . . and is not . . . . her,
the embodiment of everything,
the symbol of nothing but itself.
This is when . . . . I think . . . . maybe not . . . . but probably so.
this is when I love her the most,
when she’s putting on socks, half-naked,
paying little attention to me.
“What?” she says.
She’s not even listening to me.
“Should I pick up Josh,” I say,
“and what about the bread and milk?”
Actually, I’m not really talking to her, either.
I’m looking at her pussy
while she struggles with this complicated long sock or something,
her head down, working it fold by fold past her heel
and ankle, then up the calf, over the knee,
up the thigh, finally standing
and jumping up and down, small little jumps,
as she tugs the last part above her pubic hair,
above the navel.
She rims the elastic with her thumb,
gives it a snap, then looks up at me,
finally. She gives her head a shake,
straightening her hair for her clients,
getting all neat and composed and psychotherapeutic,
her sacred whatchamacallit covered by a gauze curtain,
and in a minute, by the dress.
I’m looking at her,
thinking of that Grecian pottery
where Aphrodite rises from the sea,
her sandstone naked body
gravely and glistening in its classical flesh.
“What?” she asks.
“Do I pick up Josh today?”
“Yeah. Is that okay?”
“Yeah.”
We stand there, holding everything
unsaid that seems to float along with the dust motes
made visible finally by the first light of the morning
coming through the blinds.
When you coming home?” I ask.
“6:30.”
“Don’t forget my class starts at 7.”
“I won’t.”
Then she’s off, rushing from one room to another,
grabbing necessities.
I catch up to her at the door.
She kisses me.
I kiss her back. A little piece of sweet lip
in her sweet breath. I keep my eyes open
so I can see her face close-up.
“Love you,” I say.
“Love you, too.”
I stand on the front steps and watch her
get in the car, buckle-up, start the engine,
make a U-turn and come to a stop at the stop sign
at our corner. I walk to the mailbox
on the corner and give a little wave.
She sees and waves back,
then pushes off for her day, her clients.
I have things to do, too.
Have to xerox poems for my students, my fellow poets.
The sun’s not out yet; by noon, the clouds’ll break,
and it’ll be a sunny day,
and the sun will shine
on my wife and on my students
and on this blessed, sacred, sanctified life.
Jack Grapes
© 2010
