Zucker - The bad wife handbook

The Bad Wife HandbookThe Bad Wife Handbook Rachel Zucker WESLEYAN POETRY Wesleyan University Press
MIDDLETOWN, CONNECTICUT Published by Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, CT 06459 www.wesleyan.edu/wespress 2007 by Rachel Zucker All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Zucker, Rachel. The bad wife handbook / Rachel Zucker. p. cm. -- (Wesleyan poetry) ISBN-13: 978-0-8195-6846-5 (alk. paper) I. Title. Title.

PS3626.U26B33 2007 811.6--dc222007019778 Cover photograph by Celeste Fichter. In spite of
& because,
Joshua Goren synonyms do not exist. Donald HallMonogamist A human being cant compare
size and brightness on two occasions. So we say
the moon has a dark side. We say the tide twice a day.
I say that man there, so unlikemy husband. The Museum of Accidents The school girls tights speckle
in the rain.

In the city the sparrow on sparrow feet skips
across my path, legs invisible. We are bound. Similar, indistinct forms called bodies, our Milky Ways spiral arms stars, nebulae, matter bound to great disaster. Codary Once he was a type, kind, tide,
but became a singularity. I stopped breathing. The Secret Room Isnt hidden. The Secret Room Isnt hidden.

Nor filled with goods
or bodies. This feeling [strip the wallpaper,
knock for panels] I cant explain itis always,
I think his gaze made it. I say what I dont intend
so as to say something of this tending, tendency, tender
unsayable place I mean to take him. Firmament Below his clean shadow:
a sunlit prairie. A wheat field from the air: plush and temperate. The breeze is a brave caress.

There is
something I see in him: tip, edge, hint the skin of it. Shifting wheat over soil over cavern over water
over igneous over molten. Monogamist Riding a bike down a flight
of steps misnames them, reveals their lusty gravity. Have you heard that Brontosaurus
is a Camarasaurus head on an Apatosaurus body?my
loves like that: shaped, named beast did, did not exist. They should be called falls, this
plummet. Galaxies Rushing Away Im trying not to try to
get him into bed.

Instead I try but the husband flinches when I
and flinches when I say I love you and I do
love you but say Im meeting a woman named Kate.
Then, off to the winebar, order sancerre, nice summery white at $7/glass;
he, me, and vast millions are fast, red shift getting redder, every galaxy
from every galaxy, vow, promise, primordial atomrushing faster, all on our way
to greater disorder. Axon, Dendrite, Rain When he speaks I am allowed to look at him.
Let this perfect conjure slide over (all over)
the thought reaching out to my loud now I want to but find no way to make my hands
natural, accidental. I try to make his skin
a chaste idea. But even his gloves, made from slaughtered
goats, their pliable kid leather become a bias-cut
slip, myelin sheath, the impulse jumps
node-to-node, too fast for capture. The body. Less, less real.

I am aware of wanting
to look at him. In the long space
in which others speak I cannot look at him. take your clothes off And I do. In dream after dream, except
last night when Im running a long way
in the rain and, basketball in one hand, he
stands watching. And when he watches
I run and run, do not wake up
but that(there,) that, that, that: rain
at my window, husband in my bed. Rhyme, Lascivious Matchmaker Each time I try to
here comes my husband again and my mind, Im describing; context.

Forgive me, anemone, my green clearing.
He is no still pool, but actual. If I showed him my skull below the skin
then threw out the skin, would he wipe clean the bone? A thin gold wire
prevents my jaw from metaphor or His v-neck suggests
The bruised way he sits What to do with his lips Hermeneutic The sea is supposed to be something
more than a saline menagerie. I thought to be full of feeling
rather than with child was mutable, could stay small, but now Im
desolate, fleeting, pierced with this blunt fissure. My babies left a narrow passage
where longing festers. And here he entered. Brutal shunt, my heart fills
with sea water.

Involuntary muscles seize, shudder, refuse to scar. The Tell The basketball makes him not my husband
and saying so in poems makes me the bad wife. Where is the private, i.e., impassive
mask I purchased for my wedding but then forgot to wear? My mind wrote me a letter requesting to be
left out of it. My body sent flowers and a note: sorry for your loss.
But both paid to see the flop and stayed in til the river. Better to fold the winning hand than fall in love
with your cards, says the husband. Where I Went Instead of Paris In the city, out windows, I fit his face
onto the faces of other men and boys and look away before it fades.
I have learned to fly by running fast, though the waking body wont comply.
His face is the face of all men not my husband; I see him everywhere.

In the next dream I shave my head
and find my skull misshapen. In the next dream I am raped in the elevator. The doorman
steps over my body. He has your face. Wife, Wife, Duck Im not sure what this could be called doubt
but thats too simple these clouds: grayer than white (the white sky behind) like the sky at evening.
To wish the best for someone I love might mean leaving
or leaving him alone. To wish for him.

Wish for him to It looks like rain means
its not raining. It Took 24 Hours to Make the Moon I forgot to think of him today. Made of carbon, oxygen, calcium: you, him, I, stars. When a Mars-like body and Earth collided
within hours was a protoplanet named Moon and a planet moved away.
For days I forget. Mantle, core, ocean, air, I
am made of our air, air, air and air
carved-out crater of impact. Alluvial They say Gods voice in the city
sounds like a man but in the desert sounds like a woman.

His voice, the spine
of nighttime, sounds like water. Rock grazed by streamlets long enough
will sunder. One word against my sternum and I unzip. Monogamist Ive fallen ________ with him, stupid
clich, with his dark blue officewear. Maybe I just love my little boy too muchhe
looks like himitself a grievous treason. Just ask my older son.

Ask
the husband. Ask anyone. Ask the language for one decent synonym
and watch it stutter: perseveration, obsession, attention to detail
arent love exactly nor is chastity enough punishment. My Beautiful Wickedness Someone dropped a house on me
and stole my blood shoes. The girl with her skipping and singing
comes to kill me. What then will become of my spells, sole treasure I possess? What I see when what I see
is not thereI know he feels it.

Looking at him like this isnt a spell to make him
love anyone but might. All the good wife
wants is to go home. When no one watches
I teach the dog to fly. Floating Wick in Petrol I am too happy to see him. Someone must be blamed. Say, are you really this beautiful? I dream a woman puts a gun in my mouth
to make me chooselustrous, sleek, sexed. Say, are you really this beautiful? I dream a woman puts a gun in my mouth
to make me chooselustrous, sleek, sexed.

Next a jade green sandal from a bottom
drawer. Suede wedge with straps that wind around my shin. My foot