THE ENGINEER'S WIFE

She was too fat.
Too fat to be fashionable
and she knew that;
yet her husband didn't care,
or did he?
Steel-eyed and clipped in profile
his peaked hat solid on his head
he drove the Sante Fe Chief-
not because she was fat,
not because of anything like that-
for he was an Engineer.

So, she was fat,
she ran her electric lawnmower
with an easy delegated responsibility,
she chopped chicken heads and slice up
their BODIES.
She moved in a more nervous
than lugubrious way
from one project to another,

while her husband sat
with his ears attuned
to a Silvertone radio.