My Wife's Handwriting

My Wife's Handwriting

My wife's handwriting

is sacred, is my wife pressed

into print.

I cannot throw it away:

grocery lists, forgotten notes

or doodles, even less, her words

written for me. It is a splendid

poetry she leaves, unaware,

that I hear with my eyes,

having less to do with her words than with

her fingers.

My ears, too often, are deaf.

I suppose speech comes

too hard

and is gone too fast

like a hammer in a whirlwind.

The words on her paper are like

intimate parts of her body

cut off

and unguarded.

Some parts go easily for her

but how could I ignore something

of my wife

left to the world's nocuous eye?

stand idle,

by a little white rape?