as if

she writes
continually
like a long nozzle
spraying the air,
and she argues
continually;
there is nothing
I can say
that is really not
something else,
so,
I stop saying;
and finally
she argues herself
out the door
saying
something like--
I’m not trying to
impress myself
upon you.

but I know
she will be
back, they always
come back.

and
at 5 p.m.
she was knocking at the door.

I let her in.

I won’t stay long, she said,
if you don’t want me.

it’s all right, I said,
I’ve got to take a
bath.

she walked into the kitchen and
began on the
dishes.

it’s like being married:
you accept
everything
as if
it hadn’t happened.
[Charles Bukowski, ‘the intellectual,’ from Burning in Water Drowning in Flame: Selected Poems 1955-1973]