The Miser
First night together, and he said “Don’t –
don’t ever, don’t you ever write about
me.” First thing from his mouth, and it took
her breath: he saw how she was capable,
saw what words – her words – might do.
Scraped his nails down the pale silk skin
of her fore-arm. “Don’t write about this,” he said
and bent her little finger back. She felt
like she’d swallowed gold: all that sick wealth
inside her that she’d never get to spend.
—Nathalie Anderson
____
first published (as part of a longer sequence of the same name) in
The American Poetry Review Philly Edition Supplement,
Fall 1999; and is also available in the book Crawlers, co-winner
of the 2005 McGovern Prize from Ashland Poetry Press, published by
them in December 2006.