I was jealous of her time up
North, at
Oberlin, which is the first
college to
offer a Bachelor's degree to
women.
She left me for Oberlin and
I remain
a bachelor myself. She did
condescend
a time or two to talk with
me about
some things. She said she
had to leave
because I'm wholly married
to my class
and seem to have no interest
in her
and don't look like a
divorce. That was it.
Married though I am, to my
class, I told
her that I would immortalize
her in
lines of poetry if I could
find time
to scribble down a word or
two about
her swan's hair, her Aryan
complexion--
maybe write them on the
mission's bathroom wall.
Who knows? Life is unstable,
and singular
stability is what she wished
for. So,
she went to Oberlin and now,
I hear,
she scooped up a vanilla man
with locks
and keys to every box and
all the houses
that she hopes to open or
else to live
inside. He's a nice man, I
hear. I'm sure
he is, and means no harm and
thinks nothing
of the psychopathic urge to
speak to
no one after midnight when
the doorknob
stops squeaking out of its
turn. Sabotaged,
a bachelor, I'll live on
Northwestern
berries, in caves and
forests, foraging
meals as I can, canning my
dried fruits with
mason jars I've stored in
the cabin a
great-grandfather built,
bare-handed, hundreds
of dead Indians ago, while I
live
black, shadowed by the
bloody edge of his
axe. She'll finish her time
at Oberlin,
I hope, keep on tasting
every cookbook
recipe and shopping cart
holiday
treat. Taste the mayonnaise
spread on biscuits
for her buttermilk children,
and think no
more on me and this
adolescent gripe.
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