I Am on My Way to Oklahoma to Bury the Man I Nearly Left My Husband For

Your name doesn’t matter.

I loved you.

We loved.

The years

I waited

by the river for your pickup

truck to find me. Footprints

scattered in the yellow sand.

Husband, mother-

in-law, kids wondering

where I’d gone.

You wouldn’t

the years I begged. Would

the years I wouldn’t. Only

one of us had sense at a time.

I won’t see you again.

I guess life presents you

choices and you choose. Smarter

over the years. Oh smarter.

The sensible thing smarting

over the years, the sensible

thing to excess, I guess.

My life—deed I have

done to artistic extreme—I

drag you with me. Must wake

early. Ride north tomorrow.

Send you off. Are you fine?

I think of you often, friend,

and fondly.