Phone Tag

Keep me distracted from housework
with more boasts of how good
you look naked, how you prefer
your undergarments
in the color of turquoise,
even under the nobody's-around
comfort of sweats. Describe yourself
as the smokin' chick you say
I deserve after your third glass
of wine on Friday nights.
In unspoken words, we'll be thankful
for the sick dog in your apartment
and my family needing help back home.
Each other's stories of what will be
will have their antes upped
until we envision ourselves
losing to each other at strip poker
with nothing but old library cards
as our playing pieces,
our fantasies escalating
until they are too unfathomable
to ever become secrets kept
from the small town circuit.
My sister will be safe, you
will never have to brave Boston
by commuter rail,
and I can appreciate
your unseen breasts,
gemmed in blue-green
without a letdown.

Mom's Birthday

for Dad

Though it's for my sister's wheelchair,
the restaurant's giant table
only accentuates your absence,
a fabled circular meeting spot
without a leader.

Mom thinks I feel left out
as she talks with Kristen.
I am actually pausing
for lack of your lines
of what I'm doing with my life
to prompt me as I sit,
feeling unworthy to ad-lib.

What's harder to miss
than the two ton elephant
in the room where the family gathers?
The two ton elephant
no longer there.