* Stark white bed sheets on your mattress are purer than his soul.
* The masseuse’s wedding ring slides in oil along your husband’s back; she still wears it faithfully, even after it guided him to orgasm.
* Baby powder is delicate like untouched snow, it even makes her deflowered body smell as innocent as infant skin.
* Ice is the common description of his blue eyes; but he seems distant to you during sex, so ice is not accurate enough.
* Grinding the stems of Eucalyptus leaves into a teaspoon of oil will hide the bags under his eyes from his “late meetings” at work.
* He is as untrustworthy as a snake tongue, forked for truths and for lies; he is not chivalrous, he is cold as a reptile.
* She slips him love letters in Braille; he thinks it’s arousing, she assumes you cannot read it.
* He tells you it is a telescope; the image splinters into pieces like your heart. Your marriage has become a kaleidoscope lens, and you wonder which woman believed him.
* You sometimes listen to his secretary’s voicemails. They are long. You can tell by her laugh that she is compensating for something. She stares at you at the company Christmas parties.
* You watch a barn spider spin its web on your back porch in the moonlight; you wonder how many bystanders he traps in his lifetime. You walk inside before he twirls one in silk.
Lori DeSanti recently completed her first year of Southern Connecticut State University’s MFA program for poetry. She has previously been published in Southern Connecticut State University’s undergraduate magazine, FOLIO.