Honor Code
The couple had their code. When she wore hoop earrings,
it meant “lust in action,” from “past reason hunted”
to “past reason hated,” and she needed them to meet
ASAP at the London flat where they conducted their affair.
Or he would phone, hang up after two rings, call again,
hang up after one ring, and she got the message, told
her husband it was the survey takers, the time wasters,
and he, an Oxford sociologist with a little piece on the side,
understood. There were rules they had to observe
even as they broke the most important of them:
no recriminations, no eulogies, no self-pity, no lies,
the honor code of the adulterers’ league.
from The Common (March 2024)
Rita Hayworth in Gilda.
Go to Source
Author: The Best American Poetry
