by guest poet, David Starkey
Oh, when I think of all the places
my ex-wife yelled at me!
Throughout
the house: in the kitchen and
in the bathroom, in the living room
and on the stairs, in the basement
by the washing machine,
and standing by the bookcase, throwing
books and yelling.
She yelled
at the supermarket check-out counter
when I thumbed through a copy
of Watch Your Weight, and on the corner
of Randolph and Michigan
during the biggest blizzard
in fifteen years.
In the backyard,
her voice growing hoarse
and raw with the madness
her mother and grandmother
and great-great grandmother
bequeathed to her, she yelled
until the neighbors looked over
our rickety back fence
(then she yelled at the them
for listening).
In the car,
especially in the comfort of the car:
on a five-minute trip to Burger King
or a ten hour drive to another
state. She yelled about the traffic
and her grievances at work
and what I had or hadn’t done
that day.
She bitched and belly-
ached, she fretted, carped and groaned.
She delivered tongue-lashings
and gave everyone every last
piece of her mind. She bewailed
and bemoaned her treatment
at the hands of strangers. She bellowed,
griped, groused and grumbled.
She even kvetched
occasionally, but primarily
she yelled.
She yelled at midnight
and at midday and
in the twilight—nothing about her voice
the slightest bit crepuscular.
She yelled at noon and
in the afternoon and early
in the dawn, before the stars
had faded, before I’d fully
come awake.
From what I hear,
she’s doing fine without me
there to listen, alone in the house
I gladly signed away, alone
with the wide world that made her
so desperately unhappy,
alone, alone but yelling still…
David Starkey is the poet laureate of Santa Barbara, California, and director of the creative writing program at Santa Barbara City College. Among his poetry collections are Starkey’s Book of States (Boson Books, 2007), Adventures of the Minor Poet (Artamo Press, 2007), Ways of Being Dead: New and Selected Poems (Artamo, 2006), David Starkey’s Greatest Hits (Pudding House, 2002) and Fear of Everything, winner of Palanquin Press’s Spring 2000 chapbook contest.