Wife Sallad
A man tried to eat his wife's hair.
Eat from your own plate, she said and slapped his hand.
I can't really help it, he said. We eat things and chew shapes that remind us of other people's things, just like your hair today looks like a lettuce leaf, and hunger actually can't stand staring for too long into empty china and what it reminds us of.
You can't touch my face in the china anyway! she screamed. I use that to remind me that you shouldn't eat my hair.
Then she slapped his hand again. The hand that always misunderstood everything.
But I just wanted to eat a salad for once, he said.
A wife's hair that's stuck in a salad hairstyle on top of a head is actually not a dish, she said. A woman's hair is a woman's hair and nothing else! How many times do I have to explain that?
But what will happen to the porcelain face then, he said. What will we do with our pale reflections in the porcelain?
Our faces simply aren't made of china, she said, and pushed away his hand.
Always that hand heading for the salad, the salad's hairstyles, the salad's hair, lying there on the plate in one big portion of misunderstandings.
But then again, his hand kept grabbing for something.
Per Olvmyr lives in Malmö, Sweden, and has been published by Poetry Wales, Bombay Literary Magazine, Gone Lawn, Glänta, Takahē, Baltimore Review, and other magazines.