The alphabet soup
you ate for dinner,
slurpily,
the rumpled clothes
you woke up in,
the beard you neither
trim nor grow,
all the wavy hairs on
your handsome head.
A timid argyle sweater,
a hand-me-down from your father.
The cockatiel within you
who sings and preens and frets.
Your contents, your
table of constitutive parts,
afterthoughts included,
makes you
for me.
You are
the dairy king
the one who calls the cows
home to the salt lick.
Brown cows.
The man who dreams of me
of me and
me and underwear.
The one whose soft shoes leave
leaves in the foyer
after traipsing in from the rain.
***
Kathryn Lasseter lives in Oregon and walks her dog, Darsy, every morning. She has poems in Stone Poetry Quarterly, East Ridge Review, Winged Penny Review, Streetcake, You Might Need to Hear This, and Heimat Review.
Cypress Review 