Ex-Lover Countdown

Do you remember when we were in love?

by J.W. Baz

There is an old mayonnaise jar hiding under my bed,

every day I shove bad memories down its throat

like my own personal museum of things I can't

bring myself to forget yet.

It is brimming with words I wish I could force

back into my mouth, the taste of playground gravel,

the smell of police station coffee

that wedding

the ride from the hospital

the lens flare a gun barrel casts in the sun

dodgeballs (lots of dodgeballs)

and of course, romance gone the way of the goldfish

I like to keep ex-lovers toward the outisde

of the jar.  I watch them as they press their faces

against the glass and beat their tiny fists upon the wall.

Sometimes when I'm sure no one is looking,

I roll the jar inside my palm and play a game I like to call

Ex-Lover Countdown.

Number 10

If you didn't know better, you'd have thought I took out a personal ad:

Single white male, 21, relatively attractive, enjoys poetry; seeks female 

willing to treat him like shit within the confines of a terminal, largely

sexless relationship built on grain alcohol and guilt.

Number 9

I had to stop and ask myself: Is it a bad sign

when you visit her apartment for the first time

and there is a pregnancy test on the top of the trash?

Dear Number 8,

I went looking for your passport

Found another man's underwear

I hope your baby gets lupus.

Number 7 showed me that when I put her on a pedestal,

it was really easy for her to kick me in the face

Number 7(a)

When she said, "Remember when I slept with your best friend?"

I wish I had something more witty to say than,

I'm sorry you did what?

Number 6 had a problem with silence, so she talked

the way she smoked, end-to-end, rambling

for hours about absolutely nothing, stopping

only to light another cigarette.  When she ran

out of cigarettes he'd turn the stereo up or burst

into tears while we kissed.  it was here I learned

that I do not have a thing for crazy girls,

crazy girls have a thing for me.

Her stomach was as smooth as apple skin.

Just before dawn I would graze it with the back of my hand

and roll from her tiny bed.  I'd get dressed hastily in the dark,

desperate not to rouse her though I knew she was not sleeping

I wonder now what might have been if I had stayed

until the sun wedged its way past the drapes;

would we have found our silence then?

Just before I gave my virginity to the first 

available bidder, Number 5 put on a Rusted Root album.

We writhed together like two savage, suburban warriors

in the dense thicket of the school parking lot

I gather Number 4 mistook me for some sort of superhero,

the machine she employed to grind out this town, steal her

from a fire escape and fly away.

She had a habit of tossing her problems out the window

presuming I'd swoop down and catch them.  She soon had a pile

in the alley; the neighbors had begun to notice.

I must have been afraid of heights back then.

Number 3

[with a bullet]

I had a premonition about her once; I've been gun-shot

and I'm bleeding, crimson staining white sheets, spreading

the way afternoon sun soaks the bedroom.  She's trembling,

but accomplished.  She looks forward to missing me.

The end is nigh and I'm staring at the ceiling, counting

flecks of nicotine embroidered in the paint, the same crack

I gazed into when we pretended f*cking

was more than just a virus befalling us.

Number 2, I'm sorry.

Number 1, for a record 86 straight weeks,

is you, curator of this museum.

Do you remember when we were in love?

Does the thought of it still glare at you

from across the room, tapping its foot impatiently?

Do you remember kitchens at dawn, running

from exploding cabs, diving teeth-first into frost-bitten sheets

because the heat never worked?

We were some kind of adventure.

All of this has been for you.

I've seen under the marquee where we used to meet

on Saturdays; the same pink scarf knotted around your neck

same valances of midnight strewn about your face.

Still a quiet exuberance in the way you lean in,

arms and elbows, with a new lover

kissing like the war just ended.

I'm glad you found your sailor while I was lost

at sea, how appealing memory lane can be

when you never look down.