I guess I'm over it now

I saw someone who looked like her.
Had her eyes and face,
heavy legs two loaves of bread,
hair long, like a horses tail.
Birkenstocked and baby-burdened,
she wove her way through the crowd
hunting and pecking
as the baby squinted in the sun.
I thought,
oh my God,
there's my girlfriend,
in ten years.

It was the baby that struck me,
dark eyes and dark hair,
and the husband
two feet behind
walking the empty carriage
pointing fruitlessly
in the direction he wanted to go.

"I'm not bitter. I'm just not entirely impressed by our current break-up situation."

Maybe the worst break ups are the ones you see coming from a mile away.
The pot luck guest with the Saturn the condo downtown,
and the bag of almonds the size of a human head.
Beware the stranger bearing gifts.
"You just look like someone who would like almonds," he says.
The most expensive nut of them all.
You hate almonds but you take them from him like they were roses.
I bring wine.
You say, "You brought white?"
He's in your art class, community college, "still life painting."
From Mexico, if that means anything.
After dinner drinks on the porch he says he wants to paint you with a swollen belly, arms akimbo, looking out over a field of fire.
I say, "He wants to paint you retaining water."
PMS in oil.
You say, "He wants to paint me pregnant."

Who's the father?

I would paint you tall and strong, holding a sword,
maybe an axe,
maybe a sickle.

But you don't eat meat, and abhor violence of all kinds.

I would paint you in the kitchen draining organic pasta in the sink.

But I don't paint. I only write poems you don't understand with jokes that offend you.

I'm not sensitive.

I believe in violence on TV, I eat bacon and chicken.
I own a cat but feed him Purina (because, I insist, he likes it).

He's a feminist.

You can't compete with nuts and politics.

"There's no easy way to say this."

At first he's your friend and I am your lover.
He's open-minded. Wants to sleep with you but respects your relationship
and lifestyle.
Thinks I'm
cool.
Read my poem in Siren.

And still
when he calls
and we're in bed
he sneaks under the covers
and slides between us
you talk and never mention my name.

He's your friend,
I'm your lover.
He paints you in a field of tall grass
you look like an ostrich, bottom heavy amongst the streaks of green
belly big and round.
I write a poem about the senseless slaughter
of the nations eggplants.
It's more a sonnet
than a manifesto.

You say I'm negative.
I've become wary.
I miss the next pot luck.
He brings truffles.

We break up over sushi
cold rice that sticks to the roof of my mouth
It's Valentine's day
so the tuna
has been cut
into hearts laid out on beds of seaweed.
You think it's sick.
And I eat with relish.

You say
"Let's stay friends."
I say
"He was your friend.

I was your lover."

"I guess I'm over it now."

I saw your future
in the park
on Sunday.
Shifting her baby
from one hip to the other
she caught my stare and smiled
and I
looked away.