I have part of a photo,
the only part I want.
It is my wife,
cut away from her ex,
thirty five years ago.
A finger sized sliced
picture of my wife
in a god awful dress.
The top part’s
parallel horizontal collumns of
purple, orange, green,turquoise.
The bottom part’s the same colors
but arranged in overlapping arrows
pointing up toward that spot,
subliminal directions for my eyes,
and she smiles at me,
that lovely smile,
her long neck laced with gold,
as it should be.

And if I had been there,
I would have loved to have seen
beneath that god awful dress
the lovely body of my love.

I swear, my only regret
in the twenty-five years
I’ve known her…

I wasn’t around
to take off that dress.