There's Still Time to Order Books for Christmas

Bookstore: Snake Nation Press

MARGARITAS

Beri is the funniest girl in the world.

Kathy’s been a little depressed.

Josie’s just gotten off work

counseling rapists and pedophiles,

and because it is still the March

of my thirty-third birthday,

we’re sitting on the patio of El Toro,

drinking grande margaritas on a Tuesday night,

discussing the elusive concept of sober sex

while our waiter runs the chips-and-salsa

relay so he doesn’t miss a word.

For Josie and me, newly single after a decade,

like planets slung off our axis,

and Kathy, of ruler-strict Catholic upbringing,

sex intrigues us like a foreign language.

But Beri, married for more than four years,

is having a hard time remembering sex at all,

its permutation of limbs, its wet rock and slide,

though she pretends and doesn’t know I see

she’s counting on her fingers under the table–

best I can figure, it was Christmas,

Charles’s tired stocking stuffer

offered up like a diamond necklace.

Josie says it takes three martinis

to forget the day’s fun accounts

of rodents and rectal thermometers.

Kathy needs five beers on an empty stomach

to get past god, his son, and the holy ghost,

and I’m thinking half a bottle

of a decent dry white, I’ll relax a little

about the popped balloons of my breasts,

the post-caesarian belly battle zone

my husband traded in for a twenty-year-old

with a moon-pie face and perky ta-tas.

The waiter smiles a young Spanish smile

that tells us he understands this English perfectly,

understands our need for extra sour cream,

and suddenly we’re appreciating the fit of his apron

over tight black jeans, the neon sombrero

glow washing over our enchiladas,

the low night rumble of practical sedans

burrowing back to the suburbs

like guilty fathers, and the clear constant moon,

with its gathering of all things oozing and flowing,

that keeps us glued together. We’ve fallen

silent as the empty fishbowls

in which swim our dreams of love

in dregs of salt and citrus when Kathy says,

You have to really trust a man to have sober sex.

MY BEST FRIEND MOVED 2000 MILES AWAY

Even my dogs hate me today,

that weasel-eyed Chihuahua

and the prissy Jack Russell,

their thick middle-aged growls

when I sat too close on the sofa. 

And my three-year-old socked

me, smack in the nose. I almost

slapped her back, except it was my fault

she didn’t get her nap,

what with me lugging the vacuum

from room to room,

like something that couldn’t wait.

I don’t recognize myself anymore,

the magpie shrill of my voice,

the way the corners of my mouth

mop the floor. I can’t spare

the energy to smile, something

my husband just doesn’t get,

crooning Smile, like our sadistic

high school track coach. Apparently,

he doesn’t like me much either,

my spouse, and neither

do the two teenaged daughters,

who brandish unfeasible schedules

as I shoot daggers

at their renegade belly buttons.

It’s a civil war, alright:

Who will empty the dishwasher;

who should buy the K-Y?

And all the while, they’re,

all of them, tossing dead herrings

of socks and panties into a pile

that blocks the sun.