The Voices Project
Follow us
  • POETRY LIBRARY
  • ABOUT
  • SUBMIT
  • RESOURCES

The Kitchen Wife~ By Annette LeBox

2/8/2017

0 Comments

 
‘Stoves kill 4 wives a day’ – Daily Telegraph
 
Laid out on a small cot,
                        supple as a seedling,
New Wife waits for New Husband.
Entranced, she believes
                                    herself superior. 
She is nothing
                        but novelty. 
Soon she’ll wear thin.
 
She’s a pouty girl with pointed breasts
                                                 and pear-shaped hips,
scarcely younger than their own daughter. 
 
Old Wife listens
                        for his step on the stair.
She avoids mirrors now,
                        her features lost
                                    in fissures of thickened skin. 
Charred fingers, sausage slabs,
                                    twisted, monstrous.
 
The surgeons saved her; a miracle
                        she survived. 
The authorities know.
                     They close one eye.
‘A row perhaps? A female indiscretion?’
‘Economic woes,’ her husband replies.
‘I couldn’t afford two wives.’  
 
He hurries home, blames Agni the fire god,
savior of limp cocks,
                        for failure. 
Old Wife lives.
                        No relief in sight. 
She chops chilies, prepares
                                    curried rice.
Her dark eye flails him.
             Fists pound dough,
                        resentments rolled thin.
 
Desire salts his tastes.
                  His mind stuck on the mango jelly
the girl dabs between her thighs,
            his tongue circling
                                    her nipples,
hard as peach stones, plump fruit,
                                                 sweet to suck.
 
Paper-thin walls, bed creaks.
            Kitchen shrinks in the swell of heat.
Sausage fingers rub mangled chin,
                             half nubs of singed flesh,
slivers of skin slough off,
            bacon-crisp, pain a cipher,
                                                undecipherable. 
New Wife laughs at the old man’s need.
 
Outside the sun sinks behind sky of pinks and reds.
Gloom descends into shadows. 
Old Wife edges towards the door,
                          good eye pressed against the crack. 
She spies the old man’s wrinkled buttocks,
                        pasty, doughy, rising and falling
as ducks feed from the sludge of a pond,
         tail up,
            head under,
                                    beaks burble and quack.
 
Perhaps one day when the girl’s body sags
from childbirth,
            the wives might
                                    become allies. 
Perhaps over multiple cups of Chai,
                        she’ll tell her a tale of old wives.
A dupatta dipped in paraffin,
            a shove from behind.
An eye blinded,
                        blinking in flames.
                       
 
Author Bio:
Annette LeBox is an award-winning Canadian poet, novelist and children’s writer with seven published books. Her poetry has been widely published in literary journals such as Event, Poetry Canada, Prairie Fire, Matrix and the Southern Review. Two of her children’s books have won the British Columbia Book Prize. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia. 
LeBox is an environmental activist, feminist, and wife of a former politician. 
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Poet Search

    by last name

    Archives

    January 2023
    June 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    November 2012

    RSS Feed

Contact The Voices Project: editors@thevoicesproject.org