Frank S. Palmisano III

Monogamy

She wipes her salad grin
as she presses a bare finger
to my stomach swelling
behind a thin flannel shirt.

"It is mercy that's kept you
alive this long," she says,
driving a fork into a flake
of soggy lettuce.

"Eat this," she adds.
Droll words I thought
I traded in with my mother's
broccoli.

It is the garden-variety charm
of a woman who cares for you,
wants to keep you around for
a while, wants to dominate you
at all costs.

In these stark moments of
self-discrimination, a man
is selfish when he doesn't abide,
and foolish when he does.

h

Frank S. Palmisano III is a 27-year-old poet whose work has appeared in close to 100 poetry journals and other mediums, including Rattle, Wisconsin Review, and Bender. In his practical life, he works as a technical writer for the U.S. Army Research Laboratory at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland and just finished up a teaching assignment as an adjunct professor of English at Towson University. His first book of poetry, tentatively titled Synaptic Misfires and Other Tortured Tales From the Left Brain is due out this year through JVC Books. Despite these accomplishments, his most impressive moment came recently when his admission application was rejected by the Creative Writing Program at the University of Maryland.

h