Our honeymoon night
when at last I wore his ring
as he did mine
for a time
until the accident,
a sign he’d said,
they cut it off
and broke the bond
that day he went inside
he said,
but I remembered signs
of rifts
another way
Half gone – the first child showing,
fat
my brother came
and read the riot act –
I held him back
and swore
our love far stronger than
the ties a family bind and cut
through trying to be kind –
he left,
my blood brother, bereft –
yet nephewed none the less
tied by blood and torn
as I was
once our son was born,
and birth delivered me
a different form of love,
secretly,
a greater bond to life
bound my son and I,
than being someone’s wife;
a love biology had given me
responsibility
to nurture from the start –
despite my aching heart’s desire
to mend the broken parts of you,
I had to choose,
my love
our baby’s needs
a different kind of love
now held me to account
for poverties my family had paid
to take away
from grandchildren they’d hoped
to save from accidents of birth
I had resolved, that time,
while you were inside,
to put
the children first,
despite my charismatic husband’s needs
and worse
his need of love.
My resolution waned when
my love returned,
again –
and later when our second,
born into a home
which struggled to provide
your needs,
or mine, my love,
my charismatic husband’s needs
filled space
with an uncertainty
I grew to hate.
‘I might have cleft my jaws tight shut and sealed the doors, remained inside to live a living death inside – addicted to your love – an organ doner, wired, to fuel your need of me, security, my love’ I said.
‘And I might make that self same speech to you,’ he said and took to the spare bed.
A symbiotic pact
two damaged people made
to suicide,
bereave,
leave children, in their name,
two graves
Engraved:
‘No blame’
Compassionately.
It might have ended then.
I might have stayed.
They’ll tell our story differently one day
– to suit each moment’s narrative
While I tell stories of
our wedding day
and not
Our honeymoon night
when at last I wore your ring
and you did mine,
for a time.
Cherry Coombe 