Some marriages are rafts. I saw water between
The green logs. You could not have saved me.
—Robert Bly
Each time she peeled an orange
she thought of him,
dead almost six years now, settled law.
She described, pulling off the thick skin,
how she fed him, care-full,
as though this fruit were his first
solid food, how she removed
every bit of translucent membrane
from each crescent, leaving only
tiny tender vials of aromatic juice on his tray,
his last taste on earth.
Let it be sweet. Poor man.
When was the last time she set herself
against him? There were still times.
A skunk nest of old reasons, one needn’t
get close to know where they are. Still
that final spring they talked,
tender days and nights, having shared
their only lives, having commingled
blood and money. When was the last time
he set himself against her?
Long before he was certain
he would never get out of bed again.
Children were like the Hoover Dam,
strangling a river to create immense power
and a heavenly lake through which she
could look down to see
her old life, her maidenhood, that had drowned
as the water rose. Fathoms below
there remained a time and place
she couldn’t forget, magnified by the waters.
She was still a girl down there, and free.
Then she met him,
and they were free together. Ah!
Luckily she loved work.
Sometimes if you work hard enough
you’ll sleep. She was not, for example,
done planting trees. She found them
irresistible, the nursery a danger
like the animal shelter to someone
who loves saving lives
and work. Nothing was more stirring
than the green of new growth,
tender and trusting. She thought of him
every day, his green-gold eyes,
their old Bohemian mischief restored.
She could see his faults and his innocence
clearly in their children,
and their children.