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Guy calls the doctor, says the wife’s   
contractions are five minutes apart.   
Doctor says, Is this her first child?
guy says, No, it’s her husband.
 
I promise to try to remember who   
I am. Wife gets up on one elbow,
 
says, I wanted to get married.   
It seemed a fulfillment of some
 
several things, a thing to be done.   
Even the diamond ring was some
 
thing like a quest, a thing they   
set you out to get and how insane
 
the quest is; how you have to turn   
it every way before you can even
 
think to seek it; this metaphysical   
refraining is in fact the quest. Who’d
 
have guessed? She sighs, I like   
the predictability of two, I like
 
my pleasures fully expected,   
when the expectation of them
 
grows patterned in its steady   
surprise. I’ve got my sweet
 
and tumble pat. Here on earth,   
I like to count upon a thing
 
like that. Thus explained   
the woman in contractions
 
to her lover holding on
the telephone for the doctor
 
to recover from this strange   
conversational turn. You say
 
you’re whom? It is a pleasure   
to meet you. She rolls her
 
eyes, but he’d once asked her   
Am I your first lover? and she’d   
said, Could be. Your face looks   
familiar. It’s the same type of
 
generative error. The grammar
of the spoken word will flip, let alone
 
the written, until something new is   
in us, and in our conversation.
 

 

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