She wanted no part of it and now
his job was to win her back
for a term or two, so that he could
abandon her with no regrets.
When he told her that her eyes
were a sanctuary to his soul,
he sensed he’d gone too far,
that the seasonal weed of distrust
might nurture itself to a bloom
of revulsion and so he moved
a new metaphor onto the countertop
between them, teak and rust-red inlay,
souvenir from the factory off Balderas.
With women he refused to fail.
He simply stopped and tried again.
How many girls had said yes to him
in cities, towns, villages, named
after Saint Anthony alone?
He’d burned the coded notebooks
in a pique of fright, feeding the
courtyard hibachi six sheets at a time,
till the ash plumped the cast-iron rim
and the smoke danced itself to plumes
against the blue midnight sky.