THE SECOND WIFE'S LOVESONG

The first time you took me out
in your fast car
I felt the cold, the whiplike
touch of speed, sex's awkward jitterbug
snapping steel fingers between us.
You warmed me with her fox jacket
which lay in the backseat
like a sleeping child.
It's a fake, you said,
in deference to my animal sensitivity.
But as soon as I put it on
I felt the fox
still breathing inside it.

Since then I have come home
to sleep in her canopy bed--
the actress whos big break came
when the star leaped from
a window.

I think she is my mother,
this fox who sings to me
long after you fall asleep,
who urges me to dress warm on cold days
helping me into the silk-lined coat,
they made from her hide.

I think she is my sister,
this star
who disappears whenever I try
to learn her secrets--
a flash of red fur
free as fire, free
as my breath burning holes
in the stillness of this room.

first appeared in The Beloit Poetry Journal