Poetry by Anne Potter
On the Side
Today a man on a street corner
drinking beer from a can
proposed to me. The sun
was shining and this
doesn't happen too often,
the proposal I mean,
so I laughed. "I'm
already married," I
told him. "I can be
your thing on the side."
I decline. I know
a thing or two about
things on the side.
My own husband was once
my thing on the side
when I was with a painter
who refused to leave my house.
He had hands like lilies and
his forearms had such fine bones.
He wanted to mesmerize me,
but he tracked paint
and left fingerprints
everywhere.
He found out about my husband
who was then my thing on the side
and threw me into
his truck heading out
into the desert, screaming.
I thought, "This is what it feels like
before you get murdered. Your mouth is dry
and someone else is driving."
He left fingerprints blooming
on my arms, left me there
in the desert, shivering
under a thicket of stars.
SOMETIMES HUSBANDS HAVE WINGS
Anne Potter
I grounded my husband-bird
for an acrobatic ascent
from motorcycle pegs, up
and over an oncoming Buick.
Excellent execution,
very poor landing.
"Are you mad at me?"
was the first thing he asked
when I arrived at the hospital.
He had black soot in his ears and
the idea of "yes" was ridiculous.
Both arms gone missing into gauzy chrysalides,
hands curling like yesterday's daisies.
"A bicycle, maybe," he said.
I didn't buy the argument
of no tokens, saving money.
But no matter, that was not
the essence of the thing. And I
couldn't say "no" now that
the arms have shed their cocoons
emerging brightly scarred with the promise to
"hold tight now," yet still the wild
pumping knees remember
the freedom of childhood
and the arms of the soul spread wide
flying.