My boyfriend believes aliens built the pyramids. He is very smart. I say to him, You are the smartest person I know.
We are in bed watching, on the laptop, the PBS special Pyramids. Their mysteries, etc. When he isn’t in laughing throes, he is full of woe. The truest of all men is the Man of Sorrows …
I hand him a typed-up fact: He worries it between his hands till paper roses pop out of his sleeves.
A bouquet: In the fall, the doorbell rang over and over unbidden the morning his mother was on her carpet dying. And the bell (he has the Italian way of making emphasis with his arms) does not have faulty wiring.
Proletariat must be one of his favorite words. Tonight I ate too many Oreos and referred to myself as lumpenproletariat but after he laughed he was not amused.
Atheism is lonely-making. In the dark of our apartment (he loves the Christmas tree but unplugs its lights), we feel the planetness of the planet. After the laptop glare has left our eyes, we will see from our window the stars, whose aliens make much more beautiful paper roses.
Who wants what is true, or woe? What I want is children.
from Madame XFind more by Darcie Dennigan at the library
Copyright © 2012 Darcie Dennigan
Used with the permission of Canarium Books.