Dear Man Whose Marriage I Wrecked by Jeffrey McDaniel

Dear Man Whose Marriage I Wrecked
Jeffrey McDaniel

If it’s any consolation, when your wife took me
in her mouth, I closed my eyes and pretended

I was a piece of wedding cake. I was the instigator,
bringing her flowers so often her co-workers

nicknamed me carnation hands. At night, I’d look
at the stars and slither my petals through her hair.

It was like we were on Mars–me staring over
her skull at one moon, her gazing at another.

What I’m really trying to say is I tumbled into her
arms like a thousand reluctant dominoes.

I mean, isn’t it odd–how you can buy a lap dance,
phone sex, or blowjob in a snap, but can’t

pay a person a dollar to just sit next to you
on a park bench and simply hold your hand?

MARGINALIA

Someone I know talks particularly about broken marriages so casually, you’d think she wasn’t in the middle of it years ago. Scenes from movies and books — even separations, domestic violence and nasty marital affairs of people we know — told over dinner like it’s just another one of those stories you discuss in passing, hand me over the salt, would you, just like that. It unsettles me.