Leda, Leto, Echo….
Striped by porch-light, stretched

across our bed, his fattened
chest humps up like a boat

on a flat sea. Beating dead
center of his sternum, absence

of my hand, of my nails, raking. 
I hesitate, stand over him

while outside our window
the wind and pecan tree

shuffle their skirts and hems:
gutter pings, roof pops, twigs crick

as nuts fall, unripe, yet rotten.
Europa, Eurynome, Mnemosyne….

To the gods above, I know
I pause within an arm’s touch

of this marriage and the night
with its broad demands.

What I ask: my own list
of names I invite to this bed.

Never have I chosen a man,
so preoccupied with

who pursued me.  How many 
wives stand naked, slivered

by the gray light of porches
this Saturday night,

pausing before we bend
a knee, climb up? Do they

wish for someone else as I do?
Yes, let the pecan tree’s shadow

writhe its narrow branches
all down the length of this bed.