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Teresa A. Phipps

void

I figured out why you won't buy furniture.

You won't buy furniture because you're depressed.

I'll tell you what's wrong with you: you're not

gregarious. You should look at yourself; the only time you're totally happy is when you cut up a chicken.

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Why can't we talk about what I want to talk about?

Why do you always change the subject? You hurt my feelings. I do not mistake reiteration for analysis.

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You should take one of those chemicals, maybe you'd write more. Maybe you have some kind of void syndrome.

You know why you cook? Because you like control. A person who cooks is a person who likes to create debt.

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Actual people! Actual human beings sitting on our chairs in our living room!

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I'll tell you what: I'll learn bridge.

Don't think of them as guests, think of them as extra chickens. You'd like it.

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If we had more furniture you'd have more control.

purple bathing suit

I like watching you garden

with your back to me in your purple bathing suit:

your back is my favorite part of you,

the part furthest away from your mouth.

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You might give some thought to that mouth.

Also to the way you weed, breaking

the grass off at ground level

when you should pull it up by the roots.

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How many times do I have to tell you

how the grass spreads, your little

pile notwithstanding, in a dark mass which

by smoothing over the surface you have finally

fully obscured? Watching you

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stare into space in the tidy

rows of the vegetable garden, ostensibly

working hard while actually

doing the worst job possible, I think

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you are a small irritating purple thing

and I would like to see you walk off the face of the earth

because you are all that's wrong with my life

and I need you and I claim you.

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