I’m pretty sure Yo still thinks of having sex with her husband. If I had an ex-wife I’d think about having sex with her, too. I’d make a salad or cook something and bring it to her and ask if she wanted to have sex. Even if she didn’t want to, we could still have some chicken and could talk. I could say, pass the ketchup.
If Quadratic could speak he might consider explaining a few things. Divorce, he might say, that’s the whole reason I’m never getting married.
Once I think Yo has her mouth on me. When I open my eyes she’s just sitting on the bed while the dog licks me. I laugh with her at the prank, but I tell you, it bothers me.
The banker brings a pizza. He sets it on his sports car and wants to talk, but first he offers me a slice. I tell him, Nah. He says, “What are you afraid of, making a mess?” He takes a slice and smears it on the hood. “Don’t worry about that, I got people who’ll clean that up.”
I wonder if he tells other people that I’m a guy who’ll clean up one of his messes.
Yo isn’t too keen on the population increase at the farm. She has twelve years over me, and the banker has twelve more years over her, but his girlfriend is my age. “Probably she has breasts that would make me cry,” she says. “Probably has a name like Taffy. You’ll have to start wearing clothes all the time.”
Barrett Warner is the author of two chapbooks, My Friend Ken Harvey (Publishing Genius, 2014) and Til I’m Blue in the Face (Tropos, 1994). He won the 2014 Cloudbank poetry prize and his work has recently appeared in Consequence Magazine, Revolution John, Atticus Review, and elsewhere.