Your

She sat up on the bed
and straightened her hair a bit.
“Is that the best you can do?,” she asked.
“It wasn’t even worth my time.”
I started to speak,
but she jumped off the bed and went into the bathroom.
I pulled on my shorts and went downstairs.

While I was making coffee, I could hear her grousing in the bathroom.
And the popping of the percolator couldn’t drown out the bitching she was doing in the shower.
I was pouring a cup when she came into the kitchen.
“That was the worst ever,” she said.
“That was just awful.”
I shrugged, because it was OK for me I thought.

“What are you going to do today,” she asked.
I shrugged again,
and she huffed her way by me toward the door.
“You’re pathetic,” she said.
“You’re a pathetic lover,
you’re a pathetic man.”
Then she went out the door toward her car.

I followed her to the end of the driveway.
While she unlocked her car door, I noticed movement in the big bush next to me.
Two praying mantises were copulating,
silently, mechanically, wonderfully.
“Go to it, soldier,” I said toward the male.

“I hardly worked up a sweat,” she said.
“It’s just not worth it anymore.”
Then she got in the car and slammed the door.
“Try to get something done ‘til I get back,” she yelled.
And as she sped away, she gave me the finger.

I turned to go back into the house,
when I noticed the mantises were finished.
That didn’t take long, I thought.
It seemed hardly worth the effort.
The male turned his head a little to look up at me.
Just then the female’s prickly green foreleg swung around his body.
She quickly overcame him and severed his head.
The glow went from his eyes as she drained the life from his body with her mouth.

“I know how it feels, pal,” I said.
“I know exactly how it feels.”

Reprinted from
"Surrendering to the futilities that make a man crazy"
© Copyright 2005 Keith Gery