she was sick
of seeing Keith
playing with it

any opportunity
he would whip it out,
like a magician
producing a bunch
of plastic flowers
from under a gaudy silk scarf
for an audience
long since inured to ennui

she imagined
it was the weight of it
in his hand
that appealed,
as an assassin,
creeping up the staircase,
finds reassurance
in his revolver

the evening when her parents
came over for dinner,
she could tell
Keith was fiddling with it
under the table
from his glassy-eyed look
of distracted concentration

the fidgeting, the fudgeting,
the fingering, the lingering looks
he gave it when he wasn’t holding it,
(looks he never gave her anymore)
depressed her,
pushed her buttons

that Christmas, in desperation,
she bought him a phone
and he never played with it again