Sara Wingate Gray
Poet
The Marriage Map
He says we should be here and thumbs the page
accordingly, slips a fat-skinned finger
fleshy as cured ham of a certain age
so it glides under a dog-eared corner
as clean as a pocket knife’s folding blade.
He taps tobacco down like he’s tucking
a baby in, his cigarettes hand-made
so carefully it could be he’s plucking
strands from his pouch of the finest gold silk.
I like to watch every move he might make
as I’m nothing like him and his sly ilk.
I married him thinking it was give and take,
now I don’t know where I begin to stop
or what I am except a well-placed prop.
