“Now, I found woman more bitter than death; she is all traps, her hands are fetters & her heart is snares.”                                                                                                                            —Ecclesiastes 7:26

As a damn surprise she got a pool table

and made our semi-finished basement

into a sort of rec room lounge,

and that’s how she got to calling me

Cue, after the cue ball, me being bald.

She put in a tv and a fridge

and bar stools and a boom box,

and she said, “Now we have to play

at least three times a week

to get our money’s worth,”

which, until she got sick, we did.

But even then she could be merry,

like when she remembered

how—on our first date, I spilled my malt—

and she said, “Just take those pants off,

no one will see you,” which was true

since we were at the Mug-n-Bun

in my Pontiac Catalina Convertible

which I do also miss.

We held hands on the way home,

me in my duck-print boxers and her—

although refusing to kiss me that way—

said, “Let’s go see The Sting Saturday,”

which we did, and kissed hard,

kissed a lot, very a lot, and held hands

which might be what did it for me—

that and her laughing and talking

the way she always did.