House Keys

I wonder if they ever feel foreign,
kind of heavy in your hands. If
the marigolds your husband planted
for you seem windblown. Plain nervous.
Like everyone can see they’re rooted
in a lie. He didn't hear you whisper
that day in the vintage shop: “I wanted
a midcentury modern." But I heard
the skeleton of your split-level collapsing,
saw myself clearing away bricks light as feathers.
Did you smell my fever. Sensing
my long-distance trips always went
away from you? Your husband wowed
by my world-travel wildness. I imagine
the children we'd have, the lake where
we’d take them tubing every June.
Do you ever hear them calling for us,
their voices jingling like the keys
heavy in your hand? I used to snort
at my mother when she sobbed
for her soap opera characters,
their impossible love triangles
never to be brought out into the light.
Serves me right.

Michael Montlack is author of two poetry collections and editor of the Lambda Finalist essay anthology My Diva: 65 Gay Men on the Women Who Inspire Them (University of Wisconsin Press). His poems recently appeared in Prairie Schooner, North American Review, december, The Offing, Cincinnati Review, and Poet Lore. He lives in NYC.