Reconciliation

She painted her toenails, she said,
to trick the bed monster
into thinking they'd already
been bitten off.
He bit them off anyway.
Every time.

Her mom didn't wonder:
I told you the smoke
in his pockets smelled
like it had come
from his mouth.
I told you bristles
can be rendered soft
with chemicals
and bleached wonderfully blond.
And yet you made earrings
of the padlocks I gave you
for your purse.
And the derringer I gave you
for when all else failed--
you loaded it with gum drops,
goddammit, and juju beans,
and he never dropped dead from it
like he needed to
but got crazier with every shot.

She loved him anyway--
and yet she got so
she booby trapped his wallet
on Friday nights.
She did it for love, she said,
and to rid the world
of at least one whore
and one half-dressed
huge bug with markings
on his back that looked like:
lady's man.

She was a woman's woman
but finally,
when things got really bad,
she started eating dog biscuits
to darken her voice
for her audition:
She wanted the lead
in any opera
where the diva got stomped on
got raped from the wrong end
got kicked over a cliff
and only by catching
a bush growing out of the rocks
and hanging there
with agonized fingers for hours
that seemed like years
got saved at last
and wound up in a clean bed
with bandaged feet
and a fair little man
who only scared her
when he smiled.


Tom Allen________________