Arlene Ang

DISAPPEARANCE OF THE OCCASIONAL LOVER


Summer. Potted calla lilies slipped out
intimate blooms like fingers from a glove.

He withdrew into the kitchen with
my unfinished lemon sherbet and dissolved.

I waited three weeks. Clouds through
french windows were magnified lymphocytes.

He left his toothbrush in my glass.
Like a wishbone on someone else's dinner plate

and I'm alone in the room, empty-handed,
It stood for diminishing faces, television snow,

grocery carts chucked in the middle of the road.
Terry robe and daylight became phantom limbs;

I downed pills with cantaloupe shake,
exchanged recipes with nurses. Once

I accidentally spilt milk on his Rolling Stones CDs
and found him: that familiar tread of feet

on gravel, that bitten lip that said he didn't want
to share his spoon for chocolate pudding.

Arlene Ang is the author of four poetry collections, the most recent being a collaborative work with Valerie Fox, Bundles of Letters Including A, V and Epsilon (Texture Press, 2008). She lives in Spinea, Italy where she serves as staff editor for The Pedestal Magazine and Press 1. More of her work may be viewed at www.leafscape.org.