What's more

If I were a better wife, I would have asked

For an explanation of overclocking

(when all I could imagine was Dali’s deli-sliced

timepieces, hours smoked like pastrami, ready

to be folded, lovingly, onto rye)

But I didn’t. You told me anyway, knowing

I was only half listening, one-eared, the other

Open to the chilly air, the possible home

Of our local raptor; this is how it works,

How it can work, one way, not the only one.

Maybe soulmates would have been in raptures

Over overclocking, turbocharging, speed and power,

That’s what you said it was all about. Control,

That’s what I would have said it was all about,

But I’m a better wife than that, even if the pastrami

Is mail-order and seconds and minutes aren’t a mille-feuille

When I make the sandwiches. I’m lavish with dressing.

You’re far better with the knife.

Prelude