~coda~

It was the day of my life

I appeared in a brown

skirt of flowers,

Hair washed, incandescent with my joy.

It was one.

Soon we would be one.

The possessive wife had fled

And I was the one he would keep.

His chosen.

We would read together

And teach together

And then sleep together

And beautiful children would be born

One for him, one for me

And the rest of the world would

Come in and find enough love

To change everything

That’s what love does.

The world weighed upon me,

Its destiny.

I sat by a window in an armchair

Waiting.

He came in.

“Marta, will you come with me?”

I jumped up like a child,

Followed eagerly anywhere.

It was that day,

One we all wait for.

He took me to a room,

A room I loved.

We walked to the window

Sat down at the table of heavy

Immortal oak.

I don’t remember the words.

He was talking but said nothing.

I saw his hand

It was reaching toward me,

Half on, half off

The end of the oak table.

I stared at his hand

That did not move.

What did it mean?

Suddenly my soul overthrew

Every cover

And part of me panted

And drove me toward him

His lap

He sat.

The back of my chair became a wall

That stopped me.

My sparkling hair hung over the edge

As I looked down at the floor.

What had I done?

He sat there and kept saying words,

Nothing I can recall,

Only they slowed.

Sympathy.

How could I have . . . ?

To this day my brow clouds

For that goddess within—

How she receded,

Parts peak out now and then,

Frozen.

My dreams,

Another hour in his day wasted.

When he left

His smile froze,

His stomach roared.