Please Hold

You used to imitate a camel
eating—nostrils flared, your dogged
hilarious jaw
sawing left and right. It was easy
to love you then.

I'd start coq au vin
on the pokey two-burner,
James Beard propped open with a pot.

The time we dialed Pan Am and danced
to their "Please Hold" fox trot, Mulligan's
honey-slow horn, remember?
the telephone pressed between us...

We'd drowse off at midnight, a muddle
of arms and legs
till your cock-crow under the covers
awakened us both.

And then there was morning. I'd steal
one last-minute dream
and open my eyes to a blur
of Burma Shave
in the bathroom doorway, a fizz of sunrise

you wiped away, then
two-stepped toward me.


From MRS. DUMPTY (The University of Wisconsin Press, 1998)