Each morning, husband and wife, seated and clean,
eating toast, sound of rats,
reading the paper, killing flies,
talking about the weather, each morning,
they await the night, the sexual tedium:
pretend to be asleep, pretend to be awake,
tell each other words from books of love,
each morning, husband and wife,
they go to work, return, have lunch,
they go to work, return, go to bed,
fat, glossy, year after year,
they await the night, killing taste,
killing the weather, each morning, fat,
clowns, they await the night, the sexual tedium:
pretend to be asleep, pretend to be awake,
tell each other words from books of love,
each morning, rat and rat, rat and rat.
Notebook of Complaints and Satisfactions, 1969