By Mary Jo Salter
My husband has a crush on Myrna Loy,
and likes to rent her movies, for a treat.
It makes some evenings harder to enjoy.
The list of actresses who might employ
him as their slave is too long to repeat.
(My husband has a crush on Myrna Loy,
Carole Lombard, Paulette Goddard, coy
Jean Arthur with that voice as dry as wheat …)
It makes some evenings harder to enjoy.
Does he confess all this just to annoy
a loyal spouse? I know I can’t compete.
My husband has a crush on Myrna Loy.
And can’t a woman have her dreamboats? Boy,
I wouldn’t say my life is incomplete,
but some evening I could certainly enjoy
two hours with Cary Grant as my own toy.
I guess, though, we were destined not to meet.
My husband has a crush on Myrna Loy,
which makes some evenings harder to enjoy.
Mary Jo Salter, "Video Blues" from A Kiss in Space. Copyright © 1999 by Mary Jo Salter. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.
Source: A Kiss in Space (Alfred A. Knopf, 1999)
Poet Bio
Mary Jo Salter was one of the prominent poets of the New Formalist movement, which revived traditional technique in a modern voice during the eighties. Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Salter has spent much time traveling and living abroad, which is evident in such collections as Henry Purcell in Japan.
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