For the Wife Beater's Wife<br /><br />With blue irises her face is blossomed. Blue<br />Circling to yellow, circling to brown on her cheeks.<br />The long bone of her jaw untracked<br />She hides in our kitchen.<br />He sleeps it off next door.<br /><br />Her chicken legs tucked under her<br />She's frantic with lies, animated<br />Before the swirling smoke.<br />On her cigarette she leaves red prints, red<br />Like a cut on the white cup.<br />Like a skin she pulls her sweater around her.<br />She's cold,<br />She brings the cold in with her.<br /><br />In our kitchen she hides.<br />He sleeps it off next door, his great<br />Belly heaving with booze.<br />Again and again she tells the story<br />As if the details ever changed,<br />As if blows to the face were somehow<br />Different beating to beating.<br /><br />We reach for her but can't help.<br />She retreats into her cold love of him<br />And looks across the table at us<br />As if across a sea.<br />Next door he claws out of sleep.<br />She says she thinks she'll do something<br />After all, with her hair tonight.