The Quarrel
You know I said to Mark I’m furious at you.
No he said are you bugged. He was drawing Brad who was asleep on the bed.
Yes I said I’m pretty god damned bugged. I sat down by the fire and stuck my feet out to warm them up.
Jesus I thought you think it’s so easy. There you sit innocence personified. I didn’t say anything else to him.
You know I thought I’ve got work to do too sometimes. In fact I probably have just as fucking much work to do as you. A piece of wood fell out of the fire and I poked it back in with my toe.
I am sick I said to the woodpile of doing dishes. I am just as lazy as you. Maybe lazier. The top of my shoe was scorched from the fire and I rubbed it where the suede was gone.
Just because I happen to be a chick I thought.
Mark finished one drawing and looked at it. Then he put it down and started another one.
It’s damned arrogant of you I thought to assume that only you have things to do. Especially tonight.
And what a god damned concession it was for me to bother to tell you that I was bugged at all I said to the back of his neck. I didn’t say it out loud.
I got up and went into the kitchen to do the dishes. And shit I thought I probably won’t bother again. But I’ll get bugged and not bother to tell you and after a while everything will be awful and I’ll never say anything because it’s so fucking uncool to talk about it. And that I thought will be that and what a shame.
Hey hon Mark yelled at me from the living room. It says here that Picasso produces fourteen hours a day.
–Diane DiPrima (c) 1961
Taken from No More Masks: An Anthology of Poems by Women