R.G. Evans takes a sobering look at a failed marriage and a man’s attempt to do right by his daughter.
—
Conjugal
I: Past Perfect
We had only known each other for a few hours
when we found ourselves together in bed.
We couldn’t tell from the way each other’s flesh felt
that we had been broken long before we met.
“Lace curtains,” you found the strength to say.
“The neighbors.” I had forgotten what modesty was.
II: Past
I didn’t believe in miracles or signs, but I knew
the moment we came at the same time
in Eagle, Colorado, our daughter asleep in the next room
that we were pregnant again. It felt like a star
passed from me to you but still burned somehow
in the night sky trapped inside me. I loved you.
All of you.
III: Present Perfect
I have been drinking. I have been praying.
I have been trying to pinpoint the moment
our poles reversed and attraction turned
to repulsion. I have been magnetized so long
I can’t tell the iron from the wood.
IV: Present
We both arise before dawn and move like electrons
through our house. Our daughter–our only child–
sleeps an hour later than we do. She doesn’t hear
the silence that passes for marriage between us.
She doesn’t mourn the loss of her unborn sibling any more.
We don’t mourn our loss any less than we have to.
Morning turns to dawn, and by the light of day
what we have together almost seems like life.
V: Future
I will not take a lover again. I will swallow
the notion that I deserve happiness.
I will work and I will deposit money
in all the accounts I’m responsible for.
I will smile like a father to my child.
I will not believe the lies the mirror
intimates once everyone else is asleep.
VI: Future Perfect
In six months, we will have been married
twenty years. I will have slept on the couch
four years by then. You will have cursed
my other almost loves as I will have regretted
their discovery. Our daughter will have accepted
her parents are broken. She will have divided us,
for happiness’ sake, one at a time, forever.
***
Read more of R.G. Evans’s poetry here.
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