Jefferson Carter: Life Partner

For convenience, I & my life partner

(the woman formerly known as my wife)

have numbered our arguments.  Number 3, 

you’re so negative.  Number 8, you’re 

naive.  Number 11, another beer already?  

Number 13, you don’t listen to me.

But I do.  I just don’t agree.  Now

my life partner’s on the couch, watching

Live P.D.  She’s pleased with the police,

so kind to the miscreants & trailer trash

they apprehend.  Of course, they’re

kind!  They’re on camera!  Without 

looking at me, she holds up three fingers.

.

My life partner wants to make a deal:

she’ll stop storing our broken pepper mill

upright in the spice rack, pepper everywhere 

like coarse soot, she’ll store the mill

on its side if I stop switching off the light 

over the dining-room table whenever

she’s in another room.  Why?  Why

does she need that light on all day?

She raises both fists & opens each one

twice. Number 20, you don’t love me.

First published in Rattle. Included in Vox Populi by permission of the author.