Jealousy

Penelope unweaving her father's burial shroud

Jealousy

I’m not blind
to the subtle
changes: new
passwords,
emailboxes,
making certain
that your facebook
is always logged off,
your face
perpetually booked
into your phone,
the way your eyes
& lips smile slyly
when you’re flirting—
the way they once smiled
for me—
stories
that add up,
but don’t.

Subtle, except
in sum, & I expect
not as subtle to some
less dumb than I
have been of late.

& I find
myself
jealous,
not because other men can touch
you, I know they can’t,
but because they reach you
like I once could,
like I once did:
with a word
or a glance
or a smile,
because they can reach
you more easily than I can
with little more than a text.

So, forgive me
my baseless suspicions,
excuse my infinity
of questions,
ignore
the self-inflicted
anxieties laying waste
to me from the inside
out. I was the One
to make a mess
of things, the One
who allowed the suitors
to swarm
during my selfish
odyssey.

I will return
to hold the high
place in your heart
I once did,
& you will not
have to undo
the burial shroud
you shrewdly weave.

I will return
& I will see
your eyes
& lips smile
slyly
for me
again,
& jealousy
will die
painfully,
like each & every
one of Penelope’s
suitors.