markbousfield

HUSBANDRY

Figures on your lips
slipping into long escapes,
escapes that take years upon years of greying edges,
"Sorry, why do you come here?"
"Not too long now and then I'm free" she says
drawn down the telephone in a murmur,
"The sea's so tight around my feet I can almost smell it,
I don't know why I bother any more"

Giving up and taking a smoke I finally tell her
that the American motel we dreamed of together
and other historical repeats are only us running older year by year.

And that thought,
that it ain't quite there,
that the snow and tarmac could kiss it before I did seemed too cruel
to let me crawl in amongst the sheets of her warm bed for.

The posturing at the wake was all a show of respect,
nothing to it really,
like some jungle birds preening their prowess
all puffed up and stuffy-like around the collar

and as best as I tried to decipher it for her
she couldn't grasp the fact that for the first time in 25 years
he went to work as normal.

Except on this occasion
he left without sandwiches,
he showered with hot water for the first time since before married life began,
he had a creased shirt and unpressed trousers,
that he arrived 6-7 minutes earlier than he'd ever been.

She couldn't understand that.

Not one bit.