Lounging on her Robertson sectional, 
she re-ran the lunch a frantic Missy 
had begged her for, promising big bad news. 
Turned out Doug was leaving Missy for a 
temporarily pretty cliché.  Missy’d
blubbered all over her Caesar salad  
which exasperated Mrs. O., but then
even a happy Missy could do that. 
Lunch unsettled her—it was Missy’s fault.
Was the roiling near her navel anxiety 
or gas?  A pang turned her head; a cushion 
slid softly to the floor.  She straightened up 
and surveyed her living room, shadowy
in the autumn light, a thing she hadn’t
done for a decade.  The room was reliable, 
easy to ignore, stable and tasteful. 

The coffee table looks keen to bark my shin;
the fireplace, dead from desuetude.
The paintings I’ve long ago lost interest in—
my Cornish landscape, his unsexy nude—
white carpet thirsty for a Bloody Mary,
the Chinese lamp sad not to be a vase,
the club chairs decorously stationary,
antiques indifferent to houseguests’ praise.
The drapes hang like mutineers, defeated,
sick to death of being beige and pleated.

She gave a little shiver.  Her home felt 
so empty and hostile.  Missy’s sobbing was 
so maddening that her sympathetic 
platitudes all rang false as knock-offs.  Missy. 
Who could sympathize with a woman calling 
herself Missy?  
                            But what of Mr. O.?  Would 
he displace her for one of his young 
things?  No need—they’d made their arrangements.
But if he tried, she’d hire that woman, 
the one he said picked the bones of his fat 
friend Phil, the lawyer all the men at the 
club feared and nicknamed the Barracuda.  
Fierce, toothy predators, barracudas.  
She’d looked up pictures, noted the dead black 
eyes, yoga-instructor bodies, the fins 
like razors behind the lethal mouths.  She clutched
her shoulders, shuddered.  To brighten her 
mood, she listed all the things she loved.
  
My amethyst necklace, going shopping,
dinners at La Maison Provençale, table-hopping
at the Club, Cecilia’s organza wedding gown,
Mr. O. heading to bed early—or, better, out of town.
I’ve had my fill of men and likewise ladies
like Missy.  But I do love my white Mercedes.

The nameless thing in her gut twisted, rolled.
For a moment the couch seemed to pitch and 
the walls looked to be waving like lava.

What if one of his bimbos pulls a Boleyn,  
claims sex before the wedding’s a mortal sin?
I wouldn’t much care if I were banished, 
if this soulless house went poof and vanished.

She’d move from Winter to Florida, though 
Palm Beach must be rife with Missys, 
fragile cast-offs joining hardened widows 
for the early-bird special while, just yards 
away, the ocean teemed with barracudas.  

The house would be sold.  It’s worth a lot.
I’ll be all right for money, divorced or not.  
And I’d get it all, more than half at least.
Your barracuda’s an insatiable beast.