Seasons
She says
seasonal depression
as if it’s packed away
with down jackets
and gossamery
cashmere scarves
in the spring.
Like it requires
airtight concealment
so that when
retrieved, there are no
signs of speckled
mouse feces.
As though it should
be steam-pressed
hung and aerated
before it is donned
properly
comfortably
familiarly
at Thanksgiving.
A tragedy is a comedy
in denial, we tell her.
And there is nothing
cyclic about grief and
the human condition.
What lies dormant
in good weather
travels rampant in foul
and like a nocturnal
carnivore
the nights get worse
and worse
and a bit
insufferable.
The Beauty of a Secret
the beauty of a secret
lies not within its holdings
but within its value;
that it is worthy
of being withheld,
like insoluble treasure
and we all know, brothers and sisters,
the importance of
currency in death.
Joking Hearts in the Basement of St. Belvedere’s
He sits at the card table, exchanging one stack of chips for another,
catching occasional glimpses of Diamond Kings and Joking Hearts.
He sits at the card table he hates, the one that attracts
questionable characters in the basement of his own restaurant.
He wishes he could change; he wishes he spent less time at this card table,
less time at his restaurant. He wishes the unnerving feeling in his stomach
would go away, but knows that it’s the symptom of an irreversible mistake
19 years in the making. He wonders, could he change?
He wishes he could remember their anniversary date,
find it and tattoo it on his frontal lobe like an instinct.
He wishes she put less emphasis on things like anniversary dates,
but remembers she is Madison Greene, she is soft-skinned and
less inclined to become careless with such tenderly shared sentiments.
He wishes the sky was a soap opera, so that she might pay more attention,
notice that each night before closing his eyes, he traces her name with his finger,
carves his wife’s sumptuous name into the constellations
hanging like crystalline spider webs above them.
He prays for a backbone, wishes he could inject the clear fluid between his vertebrae
with Carpe Diem and take back his wife,
assume the respectable task of once again earning her love.
He wishes he could do these things, wishes he was not propped,
slumped at the card table, caught in the company of men who hardly respect him.
He wishes this restaurant was not his life goal, wishes he focused
on the architecture of his marriage and not on remodeling the dining room of St. Belvedere’s.
He wishes their backs didn’t know each other so well,
didn’t spend so many nights silently facing each other like pale, faceless strangers.
He wishes, at various points in the day, that he didn’t love her with such unspoken vigor,
for that alone accounts for a great deal of despair in his life.
He wishes she wasn’t getting more beautiful with age,
wishes she wasn’t becoming a fascinating woman of middle age,
who walked with grace and a mature self-awareness that
he had never recognized. He wishes he could feel this same way.
He pretends this is a temporary stage, his passivity,
but knows wishful thinking is useless at this point.
He wishes he wouldn’t have read that dreadful quote in the newspaper,
said absence is to love as wind is to fire;
it extinguishes the small and inflames the great.
He longs, every day, to expel those words from his conscience like a glowing comet;
those words haunt him, strangely familiar reminders of his greatest loss.
He wishes in his next lifetime, he meets Madison Greene,
under much different circumstances. He yearns to be a decent man,
capable of providing support and the most basic points of sympathy.
He hopes he knows everything he knows now, from this lifetime,
clutches it past death and through re-birth, embracing his neglect like a divine secret.
He expects to court her with the greatest intentions,
to do nothing but make her time on Earth enjoyable.
Because Lord knows she didn’t deserve her last life.
He wishes he didn’t think like this,
wishes he had not given up at the age of 38.
He wishes he had not yet condemned their marriage,
wishes he had more faith in himself.
He wishes he could thrust himself upwards,
slice the stacks of chips with a single swipe of his arm,
heave the card table before him, onto its side,
point to the door so he doesn’t need to spell out,
| Time to leave, boys.
He wishes he commanded a presence,
wishes Madison could see him in such a passionate fit;
wishes he could drive home, at a reckless speed,
past bored streetlights and families parked in normalcy.
He wishes he could fracture the front door,
stomp purposefully through the house and find his wife
reading on the couch, surprised to see him home on a Sunday morning.
He wishes he could grab her, kiss her like she deserved it,
like he was supposed to kiss her every Sunday morning.
Every morning. He wishes that she would look at him again,
not make obligatory eye contact but truly see him again,
see that for 19 years the absence has grown, yes,
but their love is not a small one easily extinguished,
it is the love that settles on creaking wood patios,
reading vintage words from frayed book pages,
drinking coffee and admiring the gorgeous rust of autumn sunsets
after 50 years of marriage.
He wishes he could say, I never gave up.
He wishes, more than anything, that he was capable,
that this course of chivalry was in some way realistic.
He wishes he was not cursed by years of complacency.
He wishes God didn’t make it so fucking clear he was young
when they married, wishes he didn’t take for granted those
marvelously ordinary days. He wishes all these things,
but the wishes
the intentions
the cache of broken feelings
they catch in his throat,
never leave his body.
He wishes, throws a stack of chips, waits for a good hand.
About the author:
D. T. Christensen lives in Madison, WI. In his free time he runs a creative writing website at WritingFuel.com and enjoys walking medium-sized dogs.
