Rebecca Loudon

I wanted to piss you off, you and your Andy Warhol
cat with his white wig huffing in the window for 45
minutes to catch a leaf from a cherry tree,

running from room to room singing his closed-
mouth kill song. You wanted me to bake a cake,
wanted me to be that kind of woman, leaning

over the table, yellow dress hiked to my waist
in that angled kitchen, Greek bakery calendar
with its blue Christ and stations of the cross

watching over us from the grease-specked wall.
I practiced 7 hours a day, burned my tongue
on coffee meh meli, Bach partitas bleeding

through my fingers as you tightened the knot
in your tie, glared over the business section
of the newspaper. When I left, I took a cab

downtown. You followed, carrying the cat
in a hatbox. That afternoon we visited Linda
in Chicago-Read, locked up after auditions,

for flagging an airplane on the runway.
Linda took our photo with a Polaroid.
The yellow dress stuck to my thighs

in the heat, your hand resting on my hip
as though it belonged there, as though
it had been there all along.