Valentine (I)

Late of a night you lounge in the tub, thumbing
a fitness mag, evil-eyeing the pale pink
isle of your belly (the betrayer).
I lie abed fashioning get rich quicks,
mind as useful as Coppertone in a cave.
Now I hear you, post-bath, stomping your feet,
water fleeing in lemming-like droplets.
Maybe I ought get a move-on. Penny
stocks? Real estate? Neither of us, I note,
messes with nighttime dental hygiene, which
points to a certain gray, flaccid languor
pinning us like moths to the felt backdrop
of poverty and poor musculature. You
come in wanting answers. Empty, I feign sleep.