Sean Rima: A Poem For My Wife On Her Birthday.

 

Pink Chaffon and her long,
black hairs in the sink.

 

She’s a killer in boots
and tight blue jeans when
she is walking down the
soda ailse at HEB,
’cause all the dudes
are checking her out,
including me,

and her smile
and her eyes and the
swing of her hips are
a mural on the wall
of an auto repair
shop on the
deep west side,

and her heart is
bigger than a gold
Cadillac rolling down
Culebra, because, in
her love, she does
everything for
everyone
before she
does anything
for herself, while
her daughter has to
yell at her to get her
to buy herself a five-
dollar pair of shoes,

and if you’re sick, that
chick will sleep in a
chair next to your
bed, for weeks
and months,
until you are
out of harm’s way,
despite having to go
to work every morning,
and smile as if nothing

is wrong, because

that’s who she is, this

wife of mine, and

it shames me

that all I have to offer her
today–on her birthday–is
a goddamned poem
written on my phone,
and this humble
confession:

that if I woke-up one
day, and she

wasn’t there,

and her long,
black hairs weren’t in
the sink, and I didn’t smell
her Pink Chaffon perfume
as she steps carefully
from the room so
as not to wake
me on a

Tuesday morning,
going to work, at seven
a.m., I would be then

only half of me,
and only half

of what I’d ever be,

for she completes me,

this tough, little Spaniard
from the deep west side,

who loves us all beyond
all reason, has a heart
bigger than a gold
Cadillac rolling down
Culebra, and

who’s a killer in boots
and tight blue jeans when
she is walking down the
soda ailse at HEB,
’cause all the dudes
are checking her out,

including me,

and that makes me the

luckiest man in the world.

 

____

Copyright 2019 by Sean Rima.

“Poems” by Sean Rima to be released may 11 by Lulu Press.