she drinks too much
on Friday nights
and she makes
me cocktails for
her lectures before
opening her 
favorite self-help
book

she’s much
thinner than I am and
her hair is fairer 
with opal eyes to 
match

I tried corralling her 
with Schopenhauer or 
Camus or Beckett
yet she never seemed 
impressed–she
says she wants
to be happy

once I told her misery
is motivation–
she laughed and
had me turn
off the BBC while
funneling a 
cosmopolitan
down my gullet

she says you can make
your own world–
the trouble is,
her planet goes 
crashing into the Earth

sometimes I wonder how 
many she has slaughtered
with her cherry pumps
as she strolls blindly
through the alleyways

yet I cannot cast
a stone–for
like her I stumble
over children 
while slipping into
heavy boots,
but still ducking
when the mothers call
our names, weeping
in thin shawls.