I Cross Lake Michigan with the Couples’ Therapist
who designed The Emotional
Mister Potato Head: snap joy leg
into violent skull and the monstrous affect
hobbles on its eyeball.
Fun at parties sure but recently
married himself he can’t believe
his own vows will stick.
How could something so feeble become fifty years?
It’s like he’s attaching the very
ear of betrayal he himself invented
to the belly button of neither
-forgiving-nor-accepting-responsibility.
Crushed in gravel, his dumb shovel face
dreams of Michigan: lakes, trees,
sex in moonlit cabins. I say look:
when you only have summer
experiences with a place, you’re fooled
into believing you’d be happy there forever.
Try to focus on the companionship
or the great toaster from Aunt Joyce
instead of her high voice and low
housekeeping standards. He just keeps opposing
his innate fastidiousness
to his list of great Michigan lovers:
a thumb-index assembly
to run the joystick of possibly
cheating on her as soon as tomorrow
when the high-speed ferry
will carry us into
the plastic emotional bone yard
known to many
as Ypsilanti.
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