The Preterite

Inspired by Anne Sexton's "That Day"

Today. This is the open page of scribbled sentences I read--
uncrossed T's pile
with precarious precision
atop the wire binding of this diary.
I am reminiscent
and suspicious
of every yesterday I've had that holds a high opinion of itself.
Those yesterdays are a stubborn bunch and not too fond of being written in past tense,
or pencil.

Yesterday was the day you sang to me in your perifery
and let the Lennon drip from stereo speakers above the sink--
The day you wrote a song you called Restraint and played it for me
as I lie disrobed and hopeful atop 800 thread count cotton sheets--
The day the bedpost was too far from my right side to hang onto for support
and I was left alone to grab at pitches that might never reach the ever heightening harmonies,
key changes in the Hallelujah Chorus,
intricate chords no faithful Beatles fan should know.
That was the day you pulled aside a pantyline
with a pair of fingers born without intent or follow through
and even failed to finish that--
The day my foolish mind still considered such behavior
commendable--

That was the day dress slacks and collared shirts hung straight as jail cell bars,
the only puzzled closet piece askew; a pair of shoes
replaced by one of three pedastals on which I was to sit--
The day you pursed your lips and whistled a new rendition of Restraint
and purged yourself of any tone that tasted lower than a middle C. With an easy smile.
That was the day I wrestled you to the bed
the ground
and laughed as if I didn't mean it really--
when you pressed incriminating swollen hips against my inner elbow and refused to move at all--
The day you poured your past into my mouth as if it were cinnamon muffins and vanilla yogurt at the breakfast table
instead of spicy fajitas and sour cream at a late night Tex Mex grill.
That was the day I picked up the tab and calculated everything lost by doing long division on my fingers
and toes
and beauty marks--
and came up short on cash.

You
were the day I sat behind the wheel and felt a peda-stall-ing grind against my ass--
pushing,
pleading,
crying out to shout
"It's bullshit!"
even as my lips already whispered
"that's okay"
with so much honesty that even the pedastal heard and thought it must be true.
What a fool--
that day,
the pedastal,
and you,
and I
to drive at all / to seem so strong / start such a song / speak so low. In no particular order...

This is today--
when I sang a song called Love and thought back on you
and then
and upturned my eyes
at that ridiculous remix of Restraint--
the tempo changes and the inconsistency of rhyme,
and how much like a baby kangaroo you must have felt
bouncing back and forth inside your mind.
It would take me twenty six months more
before I'd realize what a feckless lyricist you were
and how the thing I'd deemed a melody
was really more a longing kind of wishful, wistful, woeful prayer.
Amen.
And though I did believe in saviors then, I know much more now.
And the words that play across these pages
are not really
saving
much of
anything--
but some vericose verbs bursting with the preterite and
five weeks worth of pink eraser shavings
piled in the margins.