Hey, You Should Read This Book...

A Draft of a Marriage Contract (Vera Pavlova)

…if necessary, the books shall be divided as follows:
you get the odd, I get the even pages;
“the books” are understood to mean the ones we used to read aloud
together, when we would interrupt our reading for a kiss,
and would get back to the book after half an hour…

*
Inseparable: the parrot and its mirror,
Narcissus and his stream.
Here, I have made duplicate keys
to Eden, had the white dress altered.
Inseparable: Robinson Crusoe and Friday,
the dots in the umlaut,
me and you, my Sunday.

*
Teeth dull, veins collapsed,
heels worn down.
We are young as long as
our parents are young.
Dry is the riverbed where milk and honey,
white and amber, had run.
In the hospital, comb your mother’s hair,
clip the yellow nails.

*
Picking a sleepy kid
off the potty at night:
the kid’s limbs
a foal’s,
a Christ’s,
long and scrawny
in the dim light.
A Pieta.