Final Game

we were married       and no one knew,
seven stacks of pancakes versus a german chocolate cake
made
by midnight, and a long cool woman in a black dress

mostly echo. mostly vermont maple siphoned from barns, mostly
the high end of your hand absorbing my chin, from pucker to pucker
mostly,
a name lost on pickled taste buds

still kept. waiting. waiting. waiting for me to cry
from an overflowing, full mouth. I outlasted
the feminine fragments of my youth,

           in bitterness, I survived

the final game of scattergories and blouses
stained in Swedish fish – I populated like orchestra
only to maintain the taste of you       a commitment
without sonnet or spectacle       bing cherry red Crosby
my vowels on a bulletin board in a retired apartment
and my ages
wasted       wanting
someone who wanted the same two weeks too late

               a pelican and history engulfed in afterlife

we were married       and no one knew