Dinner for two at a restaurant I

suggested. Now those jeans

and its brothers are ornaments on the lawn.

I was resolved to engrave

“I hate you” on my face

but then betrayed by the leaking

that stained my coral cheeks.

A rosy plush blanket twisted around

my toes as I surveyed the emptiness,

yet crowd, the room held. Numb

fingers lifted the “I love my daddy”

binky, a present from the shower.

Moving from the room, the glass

shards of girlhood sliced the soles of my feet.

I brushed a misplaced rattle, its stars sparkled

through my vision, and heard bubbly small

talk being made across the hall.

Rinsing away the news

I dismissed your pictures in my mind.

Now with diapers to change and

plastic bottles to fill, I live for someone else.

My feet duplicated the pattern of a day,

and I cursed the verb I felt.