She had sworn in something like words,
that he, in effect, was a heartless wretch
whom she would sooner see in Temecula
than ever again.

 That she should use the word
Temecula, invoking that capital
from which they had fled almost eight months back
for a series of modest apartments
moving successively eastward
along Santa Monica Boulevard,
suggested just how serious she was.
A very portentous and formidable
declaration indeed.

 He swore, in turn,
in words equally effective, that she
was a perfect embarrassment to him,
to his work, to his prospects and his friends,
and one by whom he would no sooner
be seen again than by his own mother
(an assertion of comparable pitch
and amplification.)

 She swore again
He swore again. They swore back and forth,
and all this before her alarm clock swore
that it was six o’clock, which it did just

as she was in the midst of sputtering
through a fiercer appeal to the exiling
properties of eternity and hometowns.
The clock, for its part, interrupted her
with a deferential but persistent “ah-hem,”
respectfully observing that it was time
that she prepared herself for work.

 he rolled
out of bed with a curse, dressed herself, pulled
some kind of nutritional supplement
out of the pantry or closet (which of these
two characterizations better serves
depends, of course, upon your own theories
concerning those glorified crawlspaces
called Studio Apartments), and, in leaving,
slammed the door behind her – for emphasis.
He wound himself deeper into the sheets,
and with a gentle expletive soon fell
back to sleep.


 It was the third time this week
that they had sworn to break it off.
And as with the two prior occasions,
there was enough bitterness for her part,
and recrimination for his part,
and dramatics for both their parts,
and days left in the week,
with the present separation,
to predict favourable odds for one more.