What is it with these husbands and wives
who after so long stop sleeping side-by-side
and trade their marriage vows for their cyanide,
a head-in-an-oven, a pocket full of stones
and their husbands weep for a week and call it pride
and say how She warded off the world
or its poisonous arrows, at least; I longed
to get away, but was content in her shade
– and then he takes an axe to her roots
and sells the rest for half-price plane tickets,
a week in Geneva or somewhere else,
because still I loved no-one more fondly than
her (though I sleep every night in the arms of
another – but it is alright because) thou wert my
purer mind; you were my first garland, now
here is my last:
An obituary to
My Dead Wife; Or, Our Dead Love,
And Birthday Letters I Waited too long
to write, or Put it Right
when the truth is I no longer dream of you.
Teo Eve
Image credit: Jeffrey Beall via Flickr (CC)
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