It’s Not My Fault that Your Wife Left

Your wife is leaving the party

with my hand on her waist

and I don’t know what to tell you

so that we can still be friends. You’re a poet

so your wife is too good for you. I wonder

what she sees in me that she can’t find

already mixed in with her things. The problems

with everyone are the same unless

you’re being beaten. Your wife told me that

and I didn’t believe her until she showed

the tattoo on her ankle with the bleeding

around it and called it as the ugly thing

it is. Your wife is not delusional

like so many other people’s wives

not gold-digging, not unable to darn,

not with the desire to be childless

but still pregnant one morning

touched in the biological way

and also as a wife. Your wife

is practical. She’s borne her own

share of guilt and you’d know

that too if you weren’t such a poet

which is really just a synonym for awful

husband. Your wife once tried

to kill a man with a rock but he didn’t

appear. She waited in the rain

with the stone in her shirtsleeve,

ten pounds and already blood

drawn from the inside

of her cheek. Your wife would have

swung that arm. She was ready to give up

her free life but she had the perfect

plan. To kill it and go. That man didn’t appear

and your wife was left wanting. A piece

of your wife is still in the woods.

A piece of your wife is spat out

in the grass, pre-chewed. A piece of your wife

will always be with you. But she’s ready

to use a mirror. She’s freshly minted

as childfree. She’s going to stay

skinny. She told me a secret thing

to repeat to you to save our friendship:

Hannah Schoettmer’s writing can be found in The Louisville Review, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, 24hr Neon Mag, SOFTBLOW Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. She lives in Los Angeles.

You can follow Hannah on Instagram here.