Joanna Pearson completed her MFA in poetry at the Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars in May 2009. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Best New Poets, Bellevue Literary Review, Measure, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and others. The Sword Swallower's Wife Joanna Pearson Soup spoon, drum stick, pool cue—his urge began one day out of the blue as all desires to test the body do. He popped his neck. He no longer touched me the way he used to. I found him gagging on the broom handle. They say you must be patient, entice your man back to you with old-fashioned lingerie of ruched satin, cook for him the way his mother once did, add a little spice to the bedroom ritual, play peekaboo. But he grew hoarse. There were no carrots left for the roast beef; even the curtain rod was slimy. There was an occasional façade of romance: him sucking my spidery fingers, but slowly, for much        too long, of course. I caressed the bulb of his larynx. Watch, he said. I hate this, I whispered, turning from the blade.