The Noir Wife


She's smackleg, gunbody brilliant.
She knows how to pin a man with her
tailbone, pen him nitrogen-blind
like a block of dry ice. She's
Lauren Bacall with a cigarette
stuck to her gums, lipstick
smeared on her pretty
cupid's bow. Glasslights
flicker like television
static. Even her eyes are shades
of snowflake obsidian.
This woman is all short
skirt and thigh. Hank of hair.
He called her dragonliver. Meercat.
The next thing he knew, okra
was slipping off his fork,
greening the Yellow Pages.
She brained this guy in his own kitchen.
Iced him in his fedora and bedroom
slippers, left him lying
coiled and ribboned,
a slice of film.

-Susan Slaviero (Arsenic Lobster Poetry Journal)

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