Contingent Future

My wrinkles wink through rouge
applied too thickly.
An oversized black cashmere sweater slouches off my shoulder.
A haphazard 80s-style ponytail leans to the right as I tilt over this page
in my underwear,
eating pickles out of a jar with a dessert fork.

That forty-year-old woman is in me somewhere

She’ll be watching Fantasia on mute, listening to the local radio station,
because she’s tired of “Dark Side of the Moon,”
thinking back to the one thing she remembers about 2004:
getting stoned with Arrested Development after the show.

All it took was
having silky hips,
and thinking college allure lasted forever,
and waiting for you to come home and kiss me.

I tried to turn into a feminist while you were out
because the TV was full of patriarchal propaganda—
static-filled fingers reaching out to pull my hair.
The TV says there is still something to the rumor:
“Women want to be wives.”
I close my eyes to resist,
But beyond my eyelids I see you telling me my fears
below bare trees,
And then I know—
I will be old,
sleeping in cashmere
waiting for you to come home

because you never will.