BEHIND THE SCENES AT DICK AND JANE’S | Jill Crammond
How you crumple your napkin
in the middle of dinner,
refuse to rip it
into long red veins
even as I wave my wrists,
ask you to stop
the steak
from bleeding.
How you doff your cap
when the neighbors are out,
wrap your belt beneath my chin
at sundown,
promise I will breathe easier
if
I surrender.
This is how you flaunt
your newly won purse.
This is how you fondle your winnings
like some mad gambler.
See my mare. Lift her blinders.
Stroke my beautiful wife.
See her pause
right before
the jagged teeth
of our pretty white fence
when I say whoa.
We are a Dick and Jane primer.
The only glitch in your elementary plan:
you never read the story to its other happy ending.
See Jane cook the steak.
See Dick eat.
Eat Dick, eat.
She Jane doff her pearls
to the pharmacist across the street.
She Jane slip something in her apron.
See Dick sleep.
Sleep Dick, sleep.
Run Jane, run.
Take the picket fence in one long leap.
How you crumple your napkin
in the middle of dinner,
refuse to rip it
into long red veins
even as I wave my wrists,
ask you to stop
the steak
from bleeding.
How you doff your cap
when the neighbors are out,
wrap your belt beneath my chin
at sundown,
promise I will breathe easier
if
I surrender.
This is how you flaunt
your newly won purse.
This is how you fondle your winnings
like some mad gambler.
See my mare. Lift her blinders.
Stroke my beautiful wife.
See her pause
right before
the jagged teeth
of our pretty white fence
when I say whoa.
We are a Dick and Jane primer.
The only glitch in your elementary plan:
you never read the story to its other happy ending.
See Jane cook the steak.
See Dick eat.
Eat Dick, eat.
She Jane doff her pearls
to the pharmacist across the street.
She Jane slip something in her apron.
See Dick sleep.
Sleep Dick, sleep.
Run Jane, run.
Take the picket fence in one long leap.