Love Object To My Wife Poem by Bernard Henrie

I am a love object to my wife,
her hand trails through my bath water
like a cats tail swishing on the rug.

Our children, happy as English apples
sleep in distant rooms like lotus eaters.
The house still as church on Tuesday.

My wife has mixed a pitcher of gin fizz,
ice clinks in the metal pot as she pours.
She avoids my name, I am a night visitor.

I know secrets, her missing right breast,
she stammers when tired and needs sleep.
years ago she was briefly unfaithful.

I slip deeper into tub water. Lone male
animal, fast and dangerous as a hunting
polar bear in the eyes of my wife.