the short & simple Annals of the Poor
— Thomas Gray
parking lot of the Maynard Mill, what felt like miles from car to heated
buildings, times I walked past the asphalt edge with the most beautiful
man for a fuck on the sly, his wife also beautiful, so I wondered, why’d
he do it? the two of us, stolen candy, sugar buzz — oh, to be so desired
I don’t remember his name, or hers, did they or did they not have babies?
as I did, safe in daycare, every other week bundled off to their father
I had my cake & ate it too with names I do remember — Harry, Ralph
Paul, Lucas, Sean — truant from our jobs those long-lunch afternoons
other times we’d randomly pair, cocking a snook at Emily Post behavior
fucking & laughing — the post-birth-control pre-Aids age of Roe —
anything a body could do with teeth & hair, hollows, bulges, elbows, knuckles, breastbones, spines, every body different, every body the same
I was no one’s except my own, & when a later husband wanted to know
how many, I couldn’t tell him, I’d notched no belts, Goodhart’s Law says
when a measure becomes a target it ceases to be a good measure
where would such a figure go? Times obit? Insta post? tombstone?