Skipping the State

Know I did not speak ill of you

when you left me weeping and pregnant

in the suburbs, for that girl with spiked hair

and a tongue ring. I have not defaulted

on the mortgage, or revealed to your enemies

your smoldering secret - how you liked it

when I pretended to have betrayed you with Robert

and you turned on the spit of minor-league jealousy,

the kind with no penalty, since you knew I was

faking. Nor in regard to naughtier longings

did I turn loquacious, nor list for other women

your shortfalls. Grant me, then, the child-support

payments, which, after all, result from your indulgence and my gullibility, trusting that things you said

in private might be taken literally. Forgetting,

under the spell of your rhetoric, that declarations

men make while inside women

will be retroactively rescinded

on withdrawal. Though you, of all people, had the temerity

to question my fidelity - believe me, the child

is ours. In honor, then, of our son's innocence,

rise, please, to this fiduciary occasion.