End-of-Marriage Music

All the unspoken
hung heavy in air,
an unresolved chord

a word could have
brought down.
Instead, it hung there

suspended & stricken,
a stasis of sound
past particle vibration

in which it hurt 
to do anything but lie
under the covers

in a dark bed. It hurt 
to read. To stand. 
It hurt to be

in the same room,
same house, same 
torn-up country.

It hurt to be unseen 
& also to see, 
caught between

the she who was
the good wife 
& she who was me.

A past swollen 
with pain that 
augured no future                    

to which I could 
feel sutured.
Let me say it plain:

I was blurry & stuck. 
Looking back,        
not toward.

When you came 
Love, I said I am
& fell down

a well so deep 
& dark I could see,
looking up,

stars at noon. 
Sunlight floated 
in motes,

poured in fat 
shafts. Then rain 
on the roof  

& symphonic 
in gutters. A river 
of water rushing

back to refill
empty cisterns,
finding & flushing

each sunken, mute 
sorrow. A river 
coursing & singing  

tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.