Dinner
by Matthew Wallenstein
On the other side of the window
the clouds looked
like fatty knots.
She stood by the cold stove
eating saltines.
Her mind overfed
by her childhood,
her breasts hanging like willows.
Earth and sky, and this house
between them, rented
from her husband’s sister. The crackers
crumbing on her shirt.
She was hoping silently the way
she often did out loud:
that her husband would just die,
some clean collapse
and ceasing,
not so much like the wiping away
of thick grease—
this slow and ceaseless removal,
this clinging. And that kid
in the next room
would stop growing
into a face that looked just like him.
