Sincerely, Jennifer x

There’s a new ghost in my gallery,
peering from the frames of all my paintings,
her stare, so accusatory,
as she watches me with my wife’s soft hair,
twirled around troubled fingertips,
lips lost in a lullaby that lasts all night,
ignorant of the rising sun and the expectation for a woman’s place to be in the kitchen, rather than underneath the sheets and up to mischief.

She stares like I have done something wrong by moving on,
and I keep her in my conscience,
like I kept the photos of the trip we took to become women.
She wails through the walls,
thick, thundering chains around thin wrists,
and her wandering becomes a waltz,
loud and lavish as the sun rises and sets,
and her eyes follow me to places she can never go.