My Divorcing Husband
has allowed Me to become
The Social Outcast
Who walks My expansive beach alone
Who sleeps with
The Virginal Banana
Who reads Her Verse
dressed like a vamp
while He refuses to ask
“How did it go?”
In My Favourite Restaurant
Eye overheard The Waiter
Talking to The Cook:
“How can You have time
for God and Your Wife?”
Eye called out from My Booth:
“What if God and Your Wife
are One and The Same?”
I grew up
on the edge of existence
in a place called
The Drowned Forrest
where I stood between
ancient mysteries of passion
and future enlightenment of life
without entanglements
to turn
to behold My House —
My Funny-looking House —
staring down at me
from above the beach
where I walked along the silver sea
Eye can have My Church
here, hear upon The Beach
I can walk, wake with The Birds
in the social structure of solitude
in the company of Life
Eye can shine with The New Sun
The Human Mind can
and does believe anything:
Believe what you want
Sky of Cloud only
first blush turns Florescent Pink
unexpectantly
Possibility
of The Devil proffered but
fiercely rejected
By Timely Construction
There Exists
One Room
in M(eye) House
for The Undernourished
The Devastated
The Sublime —
held in port
for The Outcome
of Disaster
and Love
Eye went to sleep
with the sound of peepers
and when I woke
the morning’s keepers
sweetly tweeted through
the fog —
For All Existance
Eye Thanked God
I
He used to say:
“I love Your Toes –”
and didn’t know why
so nobody knows
II
He once wrote:
“I love You to distraction –”
It came at a time
when I was a fraction
of My Former Self
at His Behest
when We were installed
as His Daughter’s Guests
III
Her voice rang clear
the morning We left:
“You don’t give a fuck
about your grandchildren — ”
and so goes My Quest
for compensation regarding My Past
twenty years of seclusion by Him —
He Who assured Me
He never would fail
to deliver support
if I fell off The Rail
which I did once or twice
(but not into His Arms)
though I stayed as His Wife
and buttered His Charms
IV
It’s over now —
I’m cutting My Loss
of One Child’s Silence
I am willing to toss
to remain in My Stead
I ask to be free
of The Bonds of This Marriage
strung on The Cross
Joanna Gilman Hyde 