Jagged Breeze
The End of a Marriage
Birds up in leaves are not enough.
Their songs drift off..
To some periphery.
Like flotsam on a jagged breeze.
The strife goes on ...the battlefields persist
In Martha’s house.
And Martha coming down the hill
Is never still...Martha is always moving
She likes it best that way
It keeps her husband from her
Keeps him at bay
There is no other trick to do it.
Martha makes jam..her husband gathers in the fruit
She sighs.
She sighs... he takes so long at such a simple task
The man is but a fool...and not much use to her.
She has to do it all..to think for two
Where did it all go wrong ?
He walks in ...muddy boots
And sullies up her floor
Like some old dog he has become a chore.
Eats sleeps and snores..
There’s not much right about him
Anymore
Martha knits at night
The steely needles click and glint
He shuffles off ..to buy a drink
But Martha has the purse
He’s out of luck.
Martha ...can never rest.
His fading brain becomes the core
Of her great pain.
Slumped in his glum chair
He’s staring at an object in his mind
His eyes are set.
And she..the martyr of the cause
The one of burning flesh
Surveys the man who’d loved her once
He’d kissed her from a train
And held her round her waist.
But now he’s drifting off..
Like flotsam on a jagged breeze
He ..and his dying mind.
Kristine Byrne..sept 2013