Kenneth Gangemi
First Marriage
We were both twenty-three years
old. I was solitary, she was
social. I liked to get up early,
she loved to sleep late. While
I read a difficult book, she curled
up with her favorite magazine.
Once I lay down for a nap and asked
her to join me: a minute later
she was cuddling up close. She
had long brown hair, and I liked
to watch her brush it. I told
her how good it looked falling on
a white blouse. Every night
we went through the same ritual among
couples: she told me about her
day, and I told her about mine.
Cheerful on the telephone, she
controlled our social life.
To the marriage she brought many
art books and a fine music collection.
She introduced me to The Golden
Bough, Kathe Kollwitz, Letters to
a Young Poet, Albrecht Durer, The
Journal of Delacroix, and Erik
Satie. But she called a group
of islands an archipeglio.
Grunion,
the fish we watched spawning on
California beaches, were gurion.
The exterminator was The Cockroach
Man. I loved waking up on a
winter morning when we were warm
and snug under the covers. She
was one of the great sleepers,
and my first labor of the day was
to get her out of bed. I would
snuggle up, then whisper sweet
things into her ear until she began
to murmur. One morning she awakened
angry: she had dreamed that at
dinner I ate the entire chicken,
and left her only a wing. She
was unscientific, attractive to
mosquitoes, walked gracefully, wore
cotton blouses, liked to bake,
was a good swimmer. Sometimes
she cried for no apparent reason.
After she stopped, when she was just
sniffling with tears in her eyes,
I held her and kissed her salty
cheeks. For clues to her emotional
state, I learned to keep an eye on
the barometric pressure and the phases
of the moon. I liked smelling her
after a bath, hearing her laughter
on the telephone, sitting next
to her in movies. If I asked,
on the coldest winter nights she
would take off her nightgown.
When I cut myself I let her apply
the antiseptic: it would sting
anyway, and she night as well have
fun. She dragged me to evenings of
cultural torture. Barefoot in summer,
she wore Wigwam socks in winter.
I sat beside her like a schoolboy
while she translated letters from
France. When she went to bed early
I loved to tuck her in, lifting
the covers over her shoulders,
treating her like a child. I once
saw her make a sandwich and then take
a big bite before carrying it to
the table. My ultimate threat was
that I would send her back to Cleveland.
She liked to read in bed, propped
up on the pillows in her nightgown.
I often waited at the door while
she looked for her keys. Once
when she was dieting, she moaned as
I described a cheeseburger.
We communicated across the room
at crowded parties. In restaurants
we exchanged sandwich bites and
shared desserts. In bed she usually
fell asleep first, and I lay awake
in her warmth, sleepy and content.
A faithful reporter, my second pair
of eyes and ears, she told me at
breakfast the most intimate details
of the lives of her girlfriends.
I appreciated coming home in winter
to the warm and lighted apartment.
I might smell bread baking, or onions
browning in oil, or chicken roasting
in the oven. When she was away
and I began to miss her, I nosed
around in the closet, sniffing her
blouses and sweaters. She liked
French toast, giving dinner parties,
wearing my bathrobe. The lower
the temperature, the more I loved
sleeping with her. On a cold night,
with the feel of her soft body
under a flannel nightgown, she was
a universe of warmth. For that woman
to sleep alone was a crime against
nature. Passion diminished over
the years, but attachment steadily
grew. Each of us was the most important
person in the world to the other.
We doubted ourselves, worked as
a team, were true partners, made each
other complete, were mutual assets,
needed each other more than we knew.
Kenneth Gangemi, Poetry East, 1988.