Your Pillow Poem by Herbert Nehrlich

I never told you this before,
but at the hospital they gave
a bit of sodium pentothal,
it was the Swiss one,
you know, the one that says
Natrium Pent., well whatever,
it's coming out now like,
I think, the coins in the Casino,
the thoughts racing each other
just like the noisy silver nickels,
in all these years when you,
because of her condition
did take your trips each Fall
and stayed for three, four weeks.
When I came back from Sea Tac
(no I will not use that fancy name)
after dropping you outside
I'd fabricate a reason for myself
to make the night an early one,
and all the nights became the same,
it served to shorten all those weeks
until the time would come again
where I would hit I-5, due South
to pick you up bearing a box of
(I knew you'd smile at that) , a box
of Oreo Cookies and another one
of those delectable Fig Newtons.
Then we'd go home and open
a big one from the cellar, Bardolino.
ice cold of course, inspite of Pierre.
We'd snuggle, watch a show like
Archie Bunker or The Dukes of Hazzard,
and you would ask about your pillow,
why it seemed so wrinkled, and how
those crumbs were everywhere.
Today I'll tell you all my secrets, true,
it was the pheromones that in the end
did help me while the time away, oy yes.