Vachel as in Rachel

by Suzanne Nielsen

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Step 1:  Vilify her husband. 

This process requires that you twist any stories that she tells you about the husband.  “Walter…” she begins, and his name signals to your brain to begin the ogreification that triggers your profound dislike of the man.  It is important that you can imagine him with hairy, unbrushed teeth, each cheek ablaze in an acne that requires antibiotics to clear.  (Walter is not his legal name.  Walter is the name I call him so that I can shorten it to “Wally” and therefore shorten his (in my mind) already miniscule cock.) 

Why would you need a how-to manual that outlines the way to fall in love with a married woman?  Why gain expertise in an endeavor that even armchair psychiatrists recognize as unhealthy?  Aren’t we supposed to avoid lusting after and desiring the wife of another man? The Ten Commandments mentioned something about this exact thing, and there is a billion dollar industry built around the how-to’s of healing potentially-satisfying-yet-not-actually-very-fun marriages like the one that my beloved Sarah has with Walter.

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in a shower of diamonds from the heat,
if the ballerina isn’t staggering around on stage

as from an accidental elbow in the face,
or if the knife-thrower, subject to ironic applause,

doesn’t suddenly doubt the accuracy of his aim;
it isn’t love if the moon isn’t breathing,

if we don’t receive unsought help from machines,
an automated summons to appear in court

and our bewildered joy upon entering the night
a moment after everyone else has left.
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I can remember far back thinking, “Hey, that would be a great photo,” but not saying anything because my dad would agree. Next, there would be my brother and I, holding hands on the cliff’s edge trying to grab some unhappy mountain goat by the antlers. If I heard, “You will be so happy to have these pictures when you were older,” one thousand million infinity times, I wouldn’t be lying.
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