Divorce Song
A man who is probably my husband sails by.
But I just see a sailboat, not who steers it.
But I picture a man, in the gender of things.
My husband who you will not meet.
He’s off, I don’t know, marshalling.
Ideas, not soldiers. Sailing helps him think.
I used to join him. Then we argued.
For a decade we argued. And sometimes
sailed, though I was admittedly mostly
decorative, a mermaid on the prow.
Whether I brought him better luck
is not my weather to tell. I cost him.
Time. He costs me. More.
Copyright © 2022 by Jameson Fitzpatrick. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on March 25, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.