Proving Grounds, The

The War of the Roses

69 The wAr oF The roses At thirty-nine, I’ve been married three times. The first time, trying on conformity To see if it fit, we had a ten-word Ceremony performed by my mother’s friend, A judge and a justice of the peace And spent that night at the movies, KathleenTurner, Michael Douglas, TheWar of the Roses, Christmas Eve. We didn’t fight, but I left him For someone quite a bit simpler With a better head of hair, Not that my ex-husband’s hair was deficient It’s just that he wasn’t that pretty And I was blasted clean through By the years different men Had spent with me because I was. How I longed to be shallow, that cool. Number two was ten years, Ten pretty boys later, The one who gave me Cds By Ani DiFranco, Courtney Love, The one who knew that try as I might I’d never fit, too angry, rough, a wound, And he tended me until I left him For the guy who almost bit my finger off 70 And at 36, I figured that was it But it is husband number three Whose voice I love, the way he doesn’t Make noise when he walks, The way I can stand when he smoothes me straight. ...