Poetry by Ruth Sabath Rosenthal  ↔ Art by Emily T. Andress

She’s in her living room, waiting to eat;

just across the way, in another building,

her ex lives, his apartment overlooking the same

courtyard hers does. She sits and he cooks his

Sunday stew — its reek wafting through her

open window. (Looking out that window, or any

other of their widows for that matter — blinds open —

they each could see how the other lives;

and at this very moment in time, he would

see his successor napping, curled up in down

identical in color to the ex’s comforter, on

the bed in which, for over a decade, she’d

gobbled up all manner of endearments

he’d fed her nightly;

and before bedtime, at least once a week,

usually Sundays — adjacent that master

in the den with its surround sound TV,

the vulgarian had charmed the panties off

her during commercials, pumping up his volume

so she could grasp every syllable of his

accented promises and excuses;

next to the den, to the left and right of it,

their daughter’s and son’s rooms, where now,

sitting in each, is an over-night bag brought

in for the weekend visit. And down the hall,

a fairly new state-of-the art kitchen where,

according to the kids, their father has played chef

to a succession of women.

How she’d wished he’d played spouse with

as much know-how & gusto! Likely, he’d

well-played some of those women all the years

she was cleaning up after him, Sunday goose

upon greasy goose. Year after year

she’d eaten that foul stew and what else

he’d served up, till she got good and fed

up and fled to an old flame of hers living

in a brownstone just across the way

where she’s sitting in her living room,

stuck in her seat, the stench of the ex’s goose,

undoubtedly cooking to death, meshing with

what is cooking up a storm in her Crock-

pot — an old family recipe, she said.

Ruth Sabath Rosenthal website: www.newyorkcitypoet.com