morbid curiosity i call it

today i was thinking of poets and divorce

and wondering how a poet's marriage

falls apart. maybe over time he
no longer saw her tender beauty.
maybe over time she was not moved by
his touch or his kiss.  maybe over time
he no longer noticed her enigmatic
mystery.  maybe over time she quit
thinking of him during the day. 

i wonder which of them finally capitulated
to leaving, which of them stopped thinking
god forbid about divorce and crossed over
for good.  i wonder which one was
taken by surprise that this was waiting
in the wings all along in life, which one finally
had no more words.

i imagine the doppler effect, the rising sound of poets
falling in love, and then years later a descending

tone of divorcing, their marriages falling apart,
pieces all over the floor

where they must walk, gingerly, 

over jagged shards of history and

hope, the echoes of their injury bouncing off
the ceiling and walls and into the night.