A SIGHT FOR THE PIZZA MAN.

              She lays flat out naked on her towel, holding a paperback in the air to read. She says it’s better for her back on the floor. It’s almost Labor Day, she throws up mornings, she tells me in French she likes throwing up. We’re together all the time. She finds his dinosaurs. Two-inch toys in cheap plastic colors. He must’ve bought a bag of 100 for a couple dollars and stuck them one by one all over the house when he left: blue tyrannosaurus of the dishwasher, green clothesdryer pterodactyl, yellow knifedrawer brontosaurus.

              Once while we’re making love she says, “Look!” She says it in French, always thinking of me, points to a purple stegosaurus bent over to watch from the ceiling light. It’s a great goodbye joke. Very extinct. I’ll use it someday I think. And then remember: ex-wife and kid I detest, new wife I love, new kid on the way, no more joke goodbyes in my lifetime. She’s funny, or whining, pissy, annoying, pitiful, silly, and who I never leave.

              “He wants to see you,” I say.

              “Not naked!” she jumps up, pulls the towel half around her. “I won’t be spied on but by his dinosaurs. Talk French.”

              “And the pizza guy,” I say in English.

              “Two times a week, and you tease me forever,” She says in English. “I run to the door so hungry like pregnant woman. He is a very polite, he don’t look at all much. Always now I think the door is you, I think everybody will be you.”

              “Except him. Your husband.”

              She shivers, she sits down wrapped in the towel, bends over and says to the floor in English, “He can’t see me. The pizza, who cares? You care if he sees? But not him.”

              “We get our pizzas a lot quicker now,” I say. “But you put clothes on sometimes. Put on clothes and see him. Tomorrow.”

              “I don’t want clothes. I want to be airy pregnant. I never was pregnant, you know? Thirty-eight and not. You are become sad, sorry? worried? to be pregnant dad with kid? I am old for you? Why don’t we speak French?”

              “This is too important for my French. You’re not old. I’m glad to be a dad. Don’t, if you feel bad seeing him, but he’s leaving forever he says.”

              “I have to see him. Terrible.” She rocks side to side, she makes a face, “I stick my butts to terrible plastic of your country, I must have a house of towels, yes? No clothes and pregnant and towels on everything white like soft snow new.” In French says tells me to sit beside her, no kisses, love is very dear, but this moment I must be friend. She must see him. Can I forgive her?

              “Nothing to forgive,” I say in English.

              She shakes her head. “You are going to kill me,” she says.

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