Daily Infidelities


For him it a weekend affair, almost casual even,
and for the other it was an hour's journey by plane
every Friday and another hour late on Sunday

(later, when out of a job, it would be a two-way
five-hour bus ride). For him it was a timely
diversion from the ordinary weekdays and nights

as he discovered that a forced fidelity was totally
desirable since the boredom of life was too hard
to anticipate or overcome by wanking alone.

The signs of weekday infidelities were all there:
on the dresser a pack of condoms smelling of KY
and sweat, under the kitchen magnet a slew

of phone numbers and names of different boys
for every weekday, hastily written and then
cancelled out using different ink. But he, the other,

chose to ignore all of what was there, choosing
instead to overlook, or at worse to forget (years later
he would say he never quite saw those signs).

For him it was a love just discovered and for
the other a love just past. It was the refusal to kiss
that clarified the matter at hand.

Then it was the many unspoken rehearsals
to part unannounced and another hundred to stay
till the other found someone again.

It was a quiet rage and a sullenness that never
seemed to end, till finally it did when quite
unexpectedly he said he would learn to love again

but on different terms and on different weekends.