the slowness of death

men assign their visions
to women when their heads
are turned.

she feels him, she can always
feel his eyes, fumbling
awkwardly against her

like a boy, struggling to
negotiate his zipper
and a hard on.

his left hand kneeding
her right breast as if
it were one of those

sand filled stress reducer
balloons with a ridiculous
face painted on it's front.

it's over before it began.
her eyes dart his direction,
he turns his focus

back to the book in hand
still on page eighty three,
and wonders if she knows

how he had just fucked her
and that he will fuck her
again this evening

when his wife notes the
extra twenty pounds that have
gone straight to her thighs,

the car payment is a week late,
again, and Billy got kicked off
the bus for fighting.

he turns out the light,
thinks of the woman in the diner
and the slowness of death.