Decompensated

Rick Viar

You warned me on the second date
while chicken curry and bullet naan spiced our bellies.
Always watch me. I forgot one blissful year later.
During the week we eloped, your eyes bulged
as shiny and sleepless as supermoons,
then you asked if I were dead, sounding doubtful
and agitated like everyone who meets me.
How many nights did I hobble you with love
until mania jockeyed you neighing down the cul-de-sac?
A dazed raccoon clambers from the car each homecoming,
sockets ringed darkly, legs whiskered, sniffing
across the abandoned basement where Gauguin spurts
an indigo Tahitian sea against a drywall stack.
Our Frenchie and teacup pig grunt their welcome.
We need only the jackass counselor for a petting zoo.
Your mom fondles the new pill dispenser and gawks
when I swap out dosages like sleight of hand.
She paddles through her Pall Mall cloud, worried
that I hate the person, not the disease, but I can’t love you
more than after you promise it won’t happen again.
Enraptured, we anticipate the moment we’ve witnessed
in all seasons like salivating Kabuki customers
before the chef squirts his oil and sets it ablaze.
You will swallow and kiss my nose’s veiny tip,
waggling your cankered tongue. See, babe? All gone.

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Rick Viar's poems have appeared in Roanoke Review and The Sandy River Review. He is a graduate of George Mason University and the University of South Carolina. He lives in Virginia with his wife and hypervigiliant cocker spaniel.