TO MY WIFE
Standing in the jejuned room where you once
Disrupted sheets with swinging arcs of your thigh
And let loose sensate breath without a cadence,
Without a mate in nature to testify
That this was something true and charitable,
The random clacking of bowed, palsied branches,
Plus the sibilance (how terrible)
Of our son's bromide games just outside blanches
The easy cosine of your shape from mind,
Draws my attention from the dying imprint
Of how your hands were to what is consigned
To take your place, to say and swear you didn't
No matter what you did. But to define
What's left behind: you were not my wife, not mine.
