Love Light (Schadenfreude) Poem by Terese Svoboda

The tomato sauce upsets twice,
almost suffocating his small self,

that much sauce—but no
blood, no, the dream's resistant,
not a single lip's
bitten for the taste.

Certainly I taste
the granular wave of sauce
and inhale and cough
then wipe his face with my skirt

which could be skin the way
I pull it from my hips.
I have to undress him, the groceries
cold in their cans,

the red pouring out meaning,
canceling light so cold
you groan, almost
inside me. I open

my eyes, the curtain glowing
across the alley as red as
flame—grief
can be that strong.