HOW TO BE THE OTHER WOMAN
maxine lopez-keough
1. Become the kind of girl that asks important questions.
2. Remove the spine. Coil tightly. Store for winter.
3. Require a well-devised plan to secure your evening presence.
4. Pick up your anchor.
5. Develop the hips, the curve of the back, the piano-player’s fingers.
6. Provide a sense of urgency.
7. Evolve past him.
8. Regret the need to stop for air, water. (Do so audibly.)
9. Make space into a home.
10. Keep coffee shops, enemies closer.
11. Embody every port in every storm.
12. Replace the heart with a ticking clock
12b. Hold his head to the space above the left breast; give unmeasured time.
13. Learn to sleep while being watched.
14. Separate limb from limb, slowly, with vengeance.
15. Say the name until it loses all its meaning.
16. Make waiting a triumphant act.
17. Forget you have a mother.
18. Invest in bulbs; misremember their species.
19. Have the kinds of hands that heal, reform.
20. Be willing to light yourself on fire.
21. Listen for the voice that says: It was for you that I planted this garden.
22. Leave before you are asked to.
Maxine Lopez-Keough
http://thatsnice.tumblr.com
The Cradle Place
Thomas Lux