Chicken

She sleeps with baby, and another baby, one of them is a grown man - and he has a baby too
white walls one bedroom third story complex dirty carpet kitchen bathroom
mattress on living room floor
I stand just in the doorway for a minute...

I live in a three bedroom house with daughter
just her and I. she lives in a crackerbox cheese and jack
and to think, I almost married her!

from the first time I saw her, the world didn't stop
the world blurred, and she was centered in that tornado
and she loved it

she had other men, and I, well, I had keats and blake
and her.
loyalty and beauty: her specialty, and I wanted to violate it sexually. and she knew. god how she knew.

but we never did.

flirted at times. long hugs. even kissed smacked her cheeks cleaned her puke
slept next to her in the ford fascist for weeks.
and listened to her fart while waking on the sides of roads driving coast to coast.

she loved me. my money. my quick wit. but she found me wholly gross.

one day I asked for her hand. she told me, "buy a ring." money was clutched at the j-mart but I couldn't do it.

after that, I told her not to mooch off me anymore and didn't talk for a period

and as I was standing in the doorway smiling at the kids I thought to myself, I did the right thing.