the woman knows that when
she closes her eyelids
she'll see spoilt yellow tears,
yellow stars, an ache in the
deepest parts of her, and
they came home to a house,
stinking of the mould and resentment
that grow in the cupboards and
under the sink, in the bookshelves
where neither of them can see
and the man thinks there's something
on his chest, a demon, a curse,
who squeezes his lungs like the rocks
they are and lets the juice drip on
the hardwood floors and
he puts his suitcase in the closet,
the one that scuttles with the doubt-roaches
and he's weary but he says
honey, come to bed
and they pretend to pretend to
pretend
they're hungry in the morning,
both for different things and they
eat from plates of nothing
act like they're full from top to bottom
and outside the sky laughs,
the woodpecker goes
peck-peck-peck on the sill
and the woman kisses the man goodbye
in the evenings it's the same,
a glass of time to forget
and breath mints afterwards,
they both sit with an eternity in between them
and wonder why they're so empty empty
empty
they said they're on vacation
but the sky is laughing again,
and there's hate stacked neatly in
the hotel cupboards too,
blame tucked in the bedsheets and
breath mints can't hide guilt
