I {Heart} My Wife by Shoshauna Shy

My husband loves me, too,
but what kind of man plasters
a sticker like that onto the bumper
of his pick-up?
Perhaps it’s an in-law’s inside joke
or his wife slapped it on
after a week-long rage when
the truce included that he
broadcast his passion, let it serve
as fair warning to any woman
at bartime – Oh, that silver
in his sideburns, the diamond glint
in dark eyes, even his thickened
torso courtesy of apple pies
in matrimony’s kitchen!
Although he could have rubbed
that sticker on himself knowing
ladies try harder, sigh deeper,
treat him more tenderly when
propelled by jealous surges,
are compelled to try a shoplift
of a man wussed by wedlock
while the unmarried get wistful,
the long-married depressed.



Author of 5 collections of poetry, Shoshauna Shy's poems and flash fiction have appeared in a variety of anthologies, journals and magazines, and even on the hind quarters of Madison Metro buses. She usually gets ideas for new poems and stories while stuck doing something else.