The Afterlife of Milly Brown

After Mating for Life

Reading the local film fest schedule, your eyes
latch on to the movie title: After Mating for Life.
To the kitchen walls you say yes.

You carry the phrase in your head all day, attaching it
to the front of your thoughts the way you once
finished every sentence with the words in bed:
Your future is filled with money in bed.
True friends don’t judge you in bed.
Blue glass is the color of his eyes in bed.

Your head is a book for the day, working title:
After Mating for Life! It goes something like this:
After mating for life, she donates the Bunn to a local
elementary school and buys a single-cup brewer.
After mating for life, she can no longer remember
the names of the babies she forgot to have.
After mating for life, she wakes with her mouth
full of feathers, skin on fire, heart pumping tar
again and again in a way she finds touching.
It is, after all, the last part of her to care.

In the evening, you re-read the film schedule
and realize your mistake. The listing is for
two movies: After and Mating for Life.
No matter. It is a song in your head now,
a super power of invention, a kaleidoscope through
which you turn everything shiny and bright:
After mating for life, she prefers dark chocolate.
After mating for life, she runs miles in circles.
After mating for life, the dog dies and the kids grow
and she begins doing everything in bed.

It renders life a story, infused with intention,
sucking out the random darkness that fuels
the roulette wheel, the slots, the timing of
intersections and ovulation, the bad draw
you suspect is the root of it all.

                                (another poem-in-progress by me)