From Ruth

Thank you, Debbie, for reminding us about this.  I'm going to put a newer version on one I put one a while back and see if people (if anyone reads this) think it's less confusing.  I used present tense for action on clothesline, past tense for marriage stuff.  Tried to clean it up a little but it's still kind of odd.
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The Physicist on the Hill, a Non-Love Poem

I drape a sweet scented sheet
on the line, and a beetle,
the same gravid shape
as the car of my ex, flops at the top
of the percale, then descends
with a buzz down the edge,

     like Bill's air-cooled Bug, as it rolled
     from the lab's steep-streeted hill

     to our home. Smug with his knack
     for making particles interact,
     Bill treated himself to a splash
     of good country red from France
     to suit the earthy chicken chasseur 
     he taught me to prepare.

     I salted, stirred, and served,
     then dinner devoured,

     he dropped to my limbs,
     slid down my skin,
     his heart not firing sparks enough to kindle
     my body nor warm the cold linen.

As bedclothes flap in the breeze,

the scarab reaches the place where fabric ceases,

scarcely hesitates,
then hastens out of my domain,

     like Bill in his Beetle

     who left me with a recipe
     for fowl and a squeamishness
     about my sheets.