The Baker's Wife

She is tiny as a butter knifeand as if she were some dainty pastry, sheoften wears lace or hugs silvernext to her cheek.No children, but in the kitchen, a big red and blue Macaw,a living room full of yellow and blue parakeetswhich she claims all talk to her while she reads poetryand drinks coffee from a doll-sized cup.

If I met her in the library, I'dnever think she were married to a doughman. And in fact if I saw her husband on the street,with his torso slim as a French baguette,and his long-fingered hands which don't seem like paddlesor even hooks, but more like thoseof a man on a tropical terrace drinking rum,I wouldn't guessthat either of them go fishingin the Rocky Mountains on their vacations,or that they avidly read a Star Trekfanzine.