Pulling Up Beside My Husband at the Stoplight
–Marjorie Saiser
From Bones of a Very Fine Hand
We are going to the same place
but we take two cars. Sunday morning
and there’s not much traffic
so I pull up beside him at the light.
The sun is shining on the road.
Here he is in his car
beside my car,
the curve of his shoulder
through the glass, his face
fresh from a shave, his hair
against the brown of his neck.
He turns and blows me a kiss.
I watch it float on by. I ask
for another. I think of him
coming into the dark bedroom
in the mornings,
the sound of his workboots
across the carpet,
the scent of his face
when he finds me in the covers,
pulls the blanket away and
kisses my eyebrow,
the corner of my mouth,
tells me the weather report
and the precise time of day.
I roll down the window,
whistle in my throat,
pull my glasses crooked on my face,
do my best baboon snorting,
pound the horn
as if it were bread dough.
There’s only the lady in the white Taurus
but he is embarrassed, glad to see the green.
I’m stepping on the gas,
catching up, wondering
what I can do at 56th and Calvert.
