and a plastic cuckoo in the other

is the closest thing I've come to bigamy.

This is how I covet the man

not my husband:  I juxtapose his boots

with the way he unscrews

the porch light in the dark.  Drizzle

falls a tampon:  I want to be

his bathrobe, his shower curtain.

The rum in the gutter clatters

a prescription drug, a speech impediment.

I'm not any drier

from standing beside

this landscape set somewhere

in the Mississippi.  I hear

a tree and tires crunching up

the fallen nuts on his driveway—

I have porcelain molars, too

fizzing in a plastic cup

and names for how I'd like to wash

his car, his plates,

his wife's back as she bends

over to fetch the soap

that has slipped from my grasp.