Nuptials

Jesse Doiron

December 20, 2021

Standing in my bedroom

with her blouse undone,

she smiled beside the couch

and said, “So nice to finally 

see the place after all

I’ve heard about your wife

and children and the cat,”

that bowed and purred, 

aroused, now, suddenly,

by the unfamiliar smell 

it almost touched, 

when deep in dark

she turned around

to drop her ring near mine 

on the dim-lit nightstand.

Jesse Doiron spent 13 years overseas in countries where he often felt as if he were a “thing” that had human qualities but couldn’t communicate them. He teaches college, now, to people a third his age. He still feels, often, as if he is a “thing” that has human qualities but can’t communicate them.