The Suicide's Wife

lives on an island of last-ditch attempts and ancient consolations after the shipwreck she swam ashore near naked hands scraped raw on coral bra and panties soaked through sand in her teeth lapped by aftermath lying exhausted slowly approaching the condition of music he loved her stubborn luster sure they argued sometimes the word "argue" from Latin meaning to make clear while she sat quietly in the wing chair her eyes closed police ransacked his desk the note turned up in his pocket with the letter for his sister a baseball ticket stub receipts for two "taco platters"he whose soul was bound up with mine and part of a bookmark six weeks later she looks great thin and translucent a statue of justice sans blindfold she wears beautiful blouses now peach, gold, seedling green her complexion has never been better lushness nips at the heels of destruction tonight's lurid sunset's a cocktail of too many boozes she'd like to switch it off via remote control but there's no antidote for celestial events a frantic bat takes a wrong turn from the attic veers into her living room, bounces off walls a sick flut-thud each time it hits the suicide's wife pulls out her roasting pan climbs the kitchen counter teeters and grabs for twenty minutes at last claps on the lid walks her prize outside releases the creature into the trees where the lawn peters out where the idea that at death something is liberated can flap blackly away.