The Poet and His Wife
The poet will argue with his wife.
She will say things like: God forbid I find you sober. And he will retort with: God forbid I find you stoned and sinking with a setting sun. Anybody else would tell him to shut up and go to hell. Instead, she will tell him to listen and decompose. She will say that he is the softwood, the red wood, the spruce, the pine, fir, cedar and hemlock and that she is born of birch and beech, of maple and oak and ash. And he will be confused, and his masculinity will feel challenged. Flustered, he will say things like: God forbid we disagree But she will talk about his poetry and her words will cut him deep. She will tell him that the Chinese probably invented it centuries ago And that the Portuguese were certainly there before him. The argument will end and sometime shortly after he will apologize.
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