The Distance of Widows

Gold cherry

By amlee

Wed, 27 May 2015
  • 1680 reads
6 comments
 

 

We are left, licorice women allsorts:
Unwilling bittersweets, good wives 
and better sports, who unwitting
greet the pain game in our lives.
 
Not just in that solitary spotlight of
a soul's darkest night, gawping 
unheroic at freshly embowelled 
mahogany, oak or weeping willow;
missing our fellow whether childless, 
hopeless, stop-motioned statuettes, 
our clay feet sunk deep into
damp grave soil; or off the boil,
brow-beaten brooded: dangling 
moody orphans fast clung to arms, 
legs, burdened breasts, strangling 
our throats in our Sunday best
as a collective living piéta, 
visceral theatre of destitution...
 
Or we are the simple flesh losers
to sports cars and freshly painted
sailing boats; to the gloat in shiny
leather bags of mashie niblicks, 
Big Berthas that's just the ticket to
drive the heavenlies. Or his weekly swoop 
in high flyers, looping-the-loop across 
marshmallow skies, where he dives
daredevilish each Saturday, to get
his kicks.  It's his essential bag of
party tricks to impress as he dresses 
the part of metrosexual man who can.
While we, the corporate trophies, 
the deaf-dumb rah-rah roadies 
by his side, abiding living sacrifices 
at OT altars of annual reports, help 
sort out the bluetooth printouts 
in triplicate; our domestic routines 
ripped to bits, deferring to the company
deadline that pays the mortgage, runs
the car, sets the bar for covering kids
in milk, meat, iPhone sixes, heroin fixes
and those essential, Grecian holiday treats...
 
At the most funereal, we are cruelly
left half alive, as he jive talks some
other totty who 'renewed his youth',
living proof that while we emptied out
night potties, uneaten alphabet soup
and our maiden dreams, cooped up in
the daily drudge of "for better or worse"
- it's far worse than it ever seems. 
So he leaves. For life with another wife.
And we roll up sleeves to dig up bodies
in the vegetable patch, pretend 
it's not the end of the world that 
we weren't afterall, the perfect match.
 
This is how we plod as our men 
play God till they're as dead to us. 
Caught in the boredom of baking 
his daily bread, our dread eyes long 
dried of plaintive bleating, barbed hearts 
taken more beatings than we'd care to say.
Voided of our tantrum ways, our
womenly wiles, the beguiling batting 
of lashes to cling, cajole, keep; one last 
kiss, weep in a fleeting caress, 
a final tumble in fragranced sheets, 
which we scrub when alone again,
rubbing out any remnants of his scent.
Then ironing out, still with love, the kinks, 
backs bent over the wrench and stink of
bitter times; a lone last tear steaming out
the creases and grime of a thousand
arguments. We greet gruelling entanglement
in cowered defeat, firmly fold away 
an unflowering life in neat, sharp corners, 
forlorn brush hands over well worn 
widows' weeds,  and mutely mourn 
all past imperfections.
 
Is it any surprise
that we dream of resurrection 
with a far away look in our eyes?
Certificate U
Poem
Andrée's poems
Love

Comments

Submitted by jolono on

Loved this amlee. Really struck a chord! You poor things, you.

 

Submitted by jolono on

This is our Facebook and Twitter Pick of the Day!

Get a great reading recommendation every day

 

Submitted by Deliberately Ev... on

This is brilliant. My friend (an active feminist) will love it.

The beat of your heart is the mellifluent rhythm to my soul.

Submitted by Philip Sidney on

Full of stories and lives, so much to mull over here.

Submitted by amlee on

Thank you all for reading and kind comments. Chuffed to get sunny cherries!

: )

Andrée 

Submitted by Denzella on

Brilliant!