On Dreaming of My Wife

Abstract

On Dreaming of My Wife David Tomas Martinez All love is a form of violence,a domestic beat in the heart as much as the head, a strike to the onlything we find vital, our safety. But that sounds so scared, which might mean I am finallyhouse broken, after all these years of really trying,spent learning to wipe the toilet seat, to provide— I have begun to believe my abuelita,who believed our bodies were not built to be comfortable but to comfort others, as our minds were not made for ideas but to catalogue groceries. I have been told that love is giving orders. Last night I dreamt I was a feudal lord under a red pagoda heating a kettle of tea with my wife. Your own heart condemns you, I said with each sip of tea. I do not condemn you, she said with each sip of tea. After waking, I felt proud, having reached a new level of fidelity because she was actually in my dream.I looked at her as a Romantic poet looks at trees. To think in grunts and finger points, admittedly, is not beyond me. [End Page 171] Neither is groveling. Or regret. These fighting techniques, I've mastered. Because she was naked and still jangling in sleep, I felt horrible, knew I was, like it or not, intentional or not, just one man in a line of men, who had stopped her from breathing by kissing her, by placing my weight atop her, in the name of protection. I indicted myself, as you might indict a young couplearguing in front of a library, neither of them dressed very well or looking happy because of the summer heat and books pinned by their elbows,he pulling her arm, bringing her closer, twisting her wrist when her voice ventures a little too loud, a little too far beyond the yard. [End Page 172] Copyright © 2017 Pleiades and Pleiades Press