Bullet Holes in the Wall
by William Doreski
As Orion dances above
the snoozing village, your marriage
to the local Chief of Surgery
fails in blue and yellow flashes,
leaving bullet holes in the wall.
No one’s hurt, but the sizzle
of gossip severs your children
from their friends, and the howling
of coyotes seems more sardonic
and Orion treads the horizon
at so fanciful an angle
his dance-steps look satirical.
You shouldn’t have married such
a blunt and scientific fellow.
You should’ve chosen the scholar
with his round steel glasses, his stacks
of German and Russian textbooks,
his taste for greasy black tea.
Of course a Chief of Surgery
makes twenty times the salary
of the book-obsessed philologist;
but your husband spends that money
on women shaped like harpoons,
on gambling junkets to Vegas
and Atlantic City, on fast cars
too narcissistic for you to drive.
The impoverished scholar stays home
and wonders if his genitals
remember him. The black tea boils
in the pot, the heavy books sneer,
and as he peers from his window
Orion dances past, waving
his sword. Meanwhile the bullet holes
slowly heal and the afterglow
of the blue and yellow flashes fades
and your husband’s so very sorry—
but the children plot to change
their names when too old to care
which declension of the zodiac
the star charts tell them to blame.
August 1st, 2008 at 4:27 pm
“The impoverished scholar stays home and wonders if his genitals remember him.” ooh, very well done all around. i like this.
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