I’ve lost my husband to a “scag,” the Scaglietti he proclaims is his pride
and joy, itself an emblem of our sports-car life. And indeed, we are the envy
of the neighborhood, never mind the tickets, traffic school, the course in anger
management, or that we no longer fuck face-to-face, a love embrace only sloth
and human own the anatomy to enjoy. He has handed down his greed,
heart-rot of the family tree, to our teen-aged daughter, whose budding lust
for cosmetics and clothes crams nearly two walk-in closets. Designer dresses, lustrine
party gowns. She’s wild in violets and pinks, but he thinks she’s as sweet as the pride-
of-California that’s overtaking our lawn, buds spiting bulbs I buried beneath greeds
and compost last fall. Failed blooms, but still I see them underground, growing envy
green of the wildflowers. Meanwhile, his oversized mower fossilizes like a giant sloth,
extinct in the garage. If I mention it, it’s a scene straight from Don’t Look Back in Anger,
dinner theatre of the dining room, constant kitchen-sink drama. I’m slow to anger,
actually, frustration fermenting for years before becoming vinegar while he lusts
after pool girls, those mothers of pearl and daughters of zirconia. My rage is sloth-
slow, a stealthy predator, invisible in tall grass, but it pounces as merciless as a pride
of lions, tearing flesh from baby goats, devouring injured antelopes alive. I envy
the life of a lion king whose duties exclude hunting and rearing cubs who greedily
feed from even sleeping mothers. My own mother would always play greedy
glede with my brother and me. It seemed when Father went away, her anger
went with him. And the way he spoke of business trips provoked no envy—
endless flights to Sydney and Western Australia. But oh, the souvenirs, lustrous
minerals and gemstones, my favorite, the rectangular prisms and plates of priderite,
a polished black piece I keep with a snapshot of him and me, sitting in a sloth
-tree on a trip to South America. But memory is nothing more than a murky sloth,
a miry, muddy place of the subconscious, overgrown with the green greeds
and duck weed of years, where imagination slithers like a sand-pride;
thoughts disrupt the surface then disappear, leaving us sometimes with anger
and at others a mysterious sense of joy. The past, however illustrious
and renowned, gloriously laurelled, lauded, and crowned, will still be envious
of the present, its younger, more beautiful daughter. My analyst insists it’s penis envy,
but to reduce a woman’s woes to a desire for a dick is like mistaking a sloth
for a spider monkey. Besides, who would want one, given its routinely lack-luster
bed show? Oh, we all know that communication is the key ingredient
of a healthy marriage, but when I express how I feel, this anger
divides me, splits my lips with insults, obscenities. My crenulated heart, pried
apart, exposes the black ooze of envy, viscera of greed.
May I say to sloth, farewell, Godspeed. Wave a white kerchief at anger.
Dear Lord, won’t you lustrate my soul, allow me to swallow my pride?
