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.

Andre Price is a Baltimore native who currently lives in Pittsburgh, where he is still pursuing his degree in creative writing at Carnegie Mellon University.