Storming the Beaches of Normandy in the Dining Room

Across the table my wife stirs in her chair just momentarily
Keeping her implied focus on the newsprint
But I can still follow her advance.
She passes the orange juice to the
Cuckold, smiling.

I can see them on the far shore
The sand white like picket fences
And the water boils bellow the surface
Foaming and turning over
The telegram in my hand
Like so many prickly Morse code thorns.
It is not the sound of the guns firing
That makes the heart drop
But that of them winding into place.
Why do I know the taste of the sound of their drums
The bloodiest day that you still managed to smile.
The scenery is emerging like heavy piano chords
Violent strings echoing toward you at the bottom of a well
Where the bride threw the flowers of her wedding day and
I put my silence and rhinestones.
My heart is sinking with the roll of the ship
And the sun is full of blood
Like the mouth of a wolf or a grapefruit
But my veins thick with clicks and stops
Diffusing from the unread pages of the telegram.
I can still see them on the far shore
Why are their teeth so white
In their happy smiles full of pampered knives
Why are their movements so delicate
When the day is so bright and grisly?
“We prepare the cannons” I announce
“No lead left sire, the crew has drowned itself”
Then “fill them with us then!”
In the mirror I can see in my eyes
Where scars were meant to be placed by pretty bayonets
And my bones are turned to jello made of fire.
I’m not going to read this telegram
“Then you’ll be spared”
“So will you sir” but he was
Talking to himself like a sunken ship. I tell myself, not him,
That I’ll stop. But the drums are ceaseless
For a reason and red wasn’t always
My favorite color, but it’s what I see
And the cannons are full and I can feel that
Myself is pulled between a multitude
Of tiny jawless blips on the radar
Each with my name and time of death.

The cuckold grins and gets his coat for work
He walks through the front door of the house
He built, the dog barks and the orange juice is
Fresh squeezed. His mother loves him.
This cuckold walks out the front door.