It's Not A House, It's A Woman

By: Eli Coppola

Photo: Luciana Marti

I can get used
to not having
you here.
I do have blankets.
I've been trying to forgive myself
for 27 years now
and the outcome is still
anybody's guess.
Forgiving you
will have to wait. 
Until the moon's
too full of itself
to hold water. 

I'll walk the dog every day. 
Offer martinis to my nightmares.
Like you did, chuckling.
I'll invent new ways
to make fire, always trying to get
the body temperature right.
I will not take my clothes off
when I sleep. 
I will not sleep
when I take my clothes off. 
I will wait, patiently, for everything,
eating regularly, 
which will probably
kill me. 

If you're not here. 

But I must say,
you'll need more than cabfare
to outdistance my love static
on your radio.
You'll need
gunpowder in your next drink
to blast me out of your bloodstream.
You'll need a hundred thousand tomorrows
just to get through today. 

Lotsa coyotes out there
howling for the moon, baby, 
but I never yet heard
the moon howl
back. 

You can find Eli Coppola’s great works of poetry at Zeitgeist Press.

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