He says we’ve just separated for a breather.
I can’t take it anymore, he says. It was either
Leave for a while, to get his head into a better space
Or have to face
Thirty more years of the same damn thing.
It’s not as if either of us had some kind of mad passionate fling
With someone else. We promised total fidelity
And we stuck to it to the best of our ability.
And it’s not as if we’re mad at each other.
After all, we raised three pretty good kids together, and we looked after his mother
Until she died in the nursing home that time, when we were on that Caribbean cruise.
He blames me for that, of course. Even though I didn’t choose
The time so that we’d be away when the old girl had another coronary.
But when he gets an idea into his head he can get downright ornery.
So he blames me that we had to sell the farm and move into the city.
And he also blames me for getting elected to the union’s grievance committee,
As if I wanted to spend that much time in meetings,
Listening to the bleatings
Of a bunch of whiners who don’t know when they’re well off.
They’re the kind of people I’d love to tell off,
Because if I really wanted that kind of hassle, I could show ’em
That they can get the same kind of thing at home.
Of course, if we get a divorce, he’ll get half of my pension
And a whole lot of other things too numerous to mention.
What really bugs me is his sense of priority –
He cares more about his damned animals than about me.
He even seems to blame me for him not knowing who his father was,
As if in some way I was the cause –
Hell, I wasn’t even around then.
But of course it’s my fault again.
I can’t take it
and I can’t fake it.
I don’t know what to do.
Do you?
-- Possibly by Jim Taylor, unknown date (but possibly also by someone else. If you recognize this as someone else’s writing, please let me know: jimt@quixotic.ca)