Manskeetr

She said, once, that she
     didn’t like routine;
     avoided it, in fact—
Daily, in her bathroom she
     shrugged off intuition;
     made an active effort to change
the order of her
hygienic duties, so:

Sometimes the teeth were
brushed straight out of the
shower, one hand wiping
that fog from the mirror, and

Sometimes the teeth came
after the anti-perspirant, but
before the toenail clippers, and

Often, the teeth were even tended
in the shower— between strokes
of razor up wet calf.

I, however, don’t mind routine—
I don’t fear the impossibility of
fate or the void she claimed to see,
     and

     The girl in my bed
this morning noticed:
      “You like the art
     of repetition; I have
     noticed the time-line in
     watercolor on your walls—
     those overlapping marks
     that stretch from sun
     to mouth and back
     to sun again. You like
     safety and neighborhood
     diners, gas-stations, liquor
     stores— the naive idea
     of the same sad bar
     on Friday night and
     the same dusty brand
     of smokes.”

So, I pointed out that all
that stretches forward will,
like impressionism or a toothache.