Baling Wire and Twine

After eighteen years
our marriage has become a sort of baling wire and twine project
pieced and patched together to handle the crises
but our vision of the future hazy.

I get so angry at you sometimes;
your constant smiling,
your “it will rain soon” attitude.
I get tired of sweat and grease and manure—
of being late to every social event,
and the dirt still under your fingernails.
I’m sick of wading through piles of repair bills,
aerial photos, and plastic bags of soil samples
to find my typewriter on “our” desk.

But then there’s that rare Saturday night,
you in clean Levis, the still dark blue ones,
your Sunday lizard-skin boots,
black Stetson, brim bent just so,
you, trim in a bold-striped western shirt, dancing
as some middle-aged farmer turned singer for a night
whines out an old cheatin’ song—

I watch other women watching you, and…
think.

Carol Varilek
1990