By Ian Hall

After a week of that
infidel living, there was barely enough

of you to drape a chair. I was home alone but miles
from lonely, reading a dime

western about this marshal who’s not afraid
to let what he keeps holstered

on his hip do the talking, when in you
typhooned. My chakra is all out

of whack, you said, & went completely
coral reef on the living room floor. You reeked

like a wine press—like the Mezzogiorno’s
surliest grapes—& I could already envision your Accord

bogged someplace in the black
gumbo that tenacious rain makes

of a clay road. All of a sudden, the TV kept howling
zoinks. The cathode tubes were snagged

on the climax of an old Scooby-Doo. Shaggy just found out
who did it. What is it about you that can even

stutter a syndicated broadcast? What nasty
mesmerism? If desire is just a parlay

between tact & appetite, then you were the damned
armistice—you rode me

to treaty. Showed me poise
was just the diplomat’s grift. & always you claimed your Alpha

was anarchy, indulgence your Omega, but those piss
ant words don’t do it a lick of justice. Then as now

you nightmare me. & I can’t even begin to give
that particular dervish its due. Only a few crumbs

of sleep before I woke to an angel
food cake in the oven the consistency

of a Merriam-Webster, every ounce of cookware
exotic with antibodies. The sun was a cold yolk

on the Works Cited that all your swatted
centipedes & roaches made of the breakfast nook. & you still

so rampant in the bathroom that I couldn’t get any
barf in edgewise. & believe me when I tell you that

spew was rich as six rugged feet
up a bull’s ass. So many weeks limped by

as such—you thatched in vice, swaying from bannister
to bookcase, demolishing things like imminent domain

in a maxi dress. Me slipping
into your blind spots, nibbling

tinfoil to purge the stress, blood
combustible as fracking runoff. Even your most

benign yammer could slingshot my pulse
through the synaptic rafters. Until some morning I’d find you sober

as a proctologist, toothbrushing the human
humus out of your delicates. That night, you’d usually beckon

me to bed at a respectable hour, straighten
my rudder. & for a month I’d let the memory of that one

jubilee simmer over me like the dope
they give after gall stones. But there was no getting shed

of the fundamental taint. All those innings
we went together, & I never wised up. Never entertained

wising up. So, sure as the chicken
starved preacher lopes through the doxology, you’d welcome

back all your graceless habits. & I’d abide. Dangerously
loyal, I’d start patching up the fallout

shelter of myself—digging trenches, shoring battlements. But
the gird never matched the blast. Facing you, my city

always got sacked. My myrrh, my frankincense
delight: in spite

of ourselves, didn’t we
have a galloping good time?

~~~~~

Ian Hall was born and reared in the coalfields of Eastern Kentucky. His work is featured in Narrative, Mississippi Review, The Journal, Southeast Review, and elsewhere.