What's the summary?

Carolyn Kizer’s narrative poem “Bitch” depicts an encounter between a woman and her ex-lover. Their encounter is excessively generic, with the two exchanging pleasantries and the woman asking how the man’s children are doing before finally telling the man to send her regards to his wife. The interaction between the man and the woman is noteworthy precisely because it is not particularly interesting: because it is so generic, it draws attention to the woman’s own interior dialogue.
Through this dialogue, we are able to see beneath the surface, and the poem depicts a second narrative. Her interior dialogue focuses on the relationship between the woman and the “bitch inside.” As the man and the woman exchange pleasantries, the woman’s focus is largely on talking to her “bitch inside.” First she explains to her that the man “isn’t a trespasser anymore,” a line that hints at a history of abuse. Although the nature of this abuse is ambiguous throughout the poem, we do get the sense that the man was emotionally abusive and that he often neglected her, showing her only

But the small careless kindness
When he’d had a good day, or a couple of drinks,
Come back to her now, seem more important
Than the casual cruelties, the ultimate dismissal.

In the ending of the poem, the speaker is dragging away her now gagging “inner bitch,” telling the man how nice it was to see him again. The ending is complicated, and it is a topic of debate as to whether or not the woman’s final pleasantries are sincere. It is unclear whether nostalgia has won out and the speaker is now focused on those “small careless” acts or whether her final words are meant sarcastically.