New York-Style Hungarian Stew Poem by Ruth Sabath Rosenthal

In the darkest corner of her living room,
she waits to eat. A stone’s throw away,
her ex lives with their kids, his goulash
wafting reek into her open windows.

Through the one in her master bedroom,
the man could easily catch sight of his successor
swaddled in goose-down, identical in color
to the old comforter she could see, if she cared to,

just beyond her window, on the bed where
she’d been fed, “I’ll cherish you always.”
Abutting that room, the den with surround-
sound TV — there, the vulgarian had charmed

the panties off her during commercials, turned up
his volume so she could grasp every syllable
of his accented endearments, excuses.
Adjacent, in her son and daughter’s rooms, suitcases

the children bring back and forth each weekend;
and down the hall, the state-of-the art kitchen
where her louse ex still plays chef. How
she’d wished he’d played spouse

with as much know-how and gusto. Oh, how
he’d cooked and cooked their goose, served it
up every chance he got, till she got good and fed
up and fled to an old flame in the brownstone

across the way — where, at this very moment,
the stench of the dish her ex is, no doubt, cooking
to death, and the essence of her Crock-pot stew
cooking up a storm, inextricably mesh.