David LaBounty
　

Goddess, God

my wife,

she doesn't
walk on water
but thereis the light
of candles
in her hands
and eyes
and there is gravity
and wrinkles
tugging
on her body and face and
the stomach
and thighs are
soft
but I want
the stomach
and thighs
soft
like gentle
forgiveness
and I know
she won't
believe me when I
say she is so much
imperfect
flesh made

perfect.
　

Fair Game

You might find yourself here,
you might find a version
of yourself here, a version
you didn't want the world
to see and I would like
to say I'm sorry but I'm
far from sorry. Users
like me are never sorry.
And it's not just you;
nothing is sacred,
not even my wife and
children and I will take
your misery and joy
and shape it and write
it and it may not be
what you want to see
but that's how it goes,
because everything
is personal,
everything
is fair game.

　
Guilt

Black with guilt
and I'm always
black with guilt
and that's what
comes with having
a job that requires
you to lay a little
bullshit on your
customers and a
little bullshit
on your
employees
and the bullshit
is nothing more
than little
white lies
harmless lies
forgettable lies
and that's the
problem. I always
forget about
the lies I've told
and sometimes
that thinking
comes home
with me and
the guilt
the black guilt
comes when I lie
to my kids
and five
and six
they
catch me.

　
Billy Collins And Kung-Fu

It is an empty school
another closed and
empty school
as all the children have
moved away from here
for suburbs greener
and grander and the
dead school
is used for evening classes
and daycares and I sit
in the narrow hallway
of echoing and nasal
voices of mothers and
fathers talking about
themselves and I
read Litany while my
sons are in kung-fu class
and there are chills and I
admire Collins. I admire Collins
and I picture him
in Connecticut or the
Hudson Valley or
someplace that I'll never
afford and I wonder
what he would think
if he knew he was
here, in a dying suburb
in a dead school
while my kids practice
kung-fu and there
are chills because
I am the
evening paper
blowing down an alley
and my wife, she's always
the bread and the knife.

　
The Apocalypse

I can tell it's starting
to end by the way
she loads the dishes
into the dishwasher
and by the way she
doesn't look at me
when we talk. I can
tell it's over by the
way her smile fades
as I enter the room
and I can definitely
tell the end is
way past due
by the way she
stabs her food
with her fork.

-all poems previously published at Laura Hird