Ignorance Is Bliss (poem)

When I arrived here,
you had already left your wife
behind:  she greeted me
with her perennial question:
"Wanna long neck?"
I took that as friendly
welcome, though not usually
given to poster beer girls--
I left her on the wall, manna
from a generous stranger.

You also left a bumper sticker
affixed to the dysfunctional
closet door:  it read
"I (club) my wife
I (spade) my dog
I (heart) Memphis Tattoo Studio"
I left it there, too.

Aside from those traces,
this room at the Y was empty,
its pastel-lime, cinder-block walls
wrapped around a narrow
single bed, a monastery
refuge for a young male
Christian.  I quickly filled it up,
filled it with the rag-ends
of a nomad's life--a paper sack
full of photos, a file cabinet
full of divorce decrees
and old birthday cards,
a toaster oven
minus the toast, and a wall
full of books, already read,
stacked vertically.
I lead my life simply, and every day
she greets me again,
her long hip cocked:
"Wanna long neck?"

Now I find that you
never left at all:  rather,
you took a rope
(or was it a tie, perhaps,
a sheet or a towel, I wonder)
and slowly choked the life
out of yourself.

These days I find
my haven of solitude
peopled with vague rustlings,
and when your wife greets me
from her place on the wall,
her voice vibrates
bloody and sensual.