Pay Off

Screaming at you on Valentine's Day

or close enough not to matter

When did they ever? Matter.

To Us. To You.

And here I am -- alone-- on the side of a road -- alone

The aged, weakened, worried

Mother

waiting alone. Even more alone than I.

Afraid

For me

Of me

Of Us

Of you

Alone, again I am here, alone

You responded

Did you?

If you did, the words were

as always

only words

Not enough, never enough

As though knowing that your

Silence

That bottomless, hollow, ineffable

Silence

was the the only appropriate concomitant

to what you were doing to me

to what you did to me

to what you had done to me

to what I

Allowed

every day

every hour

every year

for so long

even

then.

Only your ineluctable

Silence

could host such a Horror.

So

I bought a car

Alone

Without so much as in

put

without so much as ad

vice

from you

The

Husband

comfortably

ensconced with

The

Wife

two days

two lifetimes

Away, always away

on the smoky

side

of a mountain.