Nancy

Your father didn’t like me at all
and your mother, perhaps, too much.

The situation was never comfortable.

Today, it seems
I was ever in danger of getting shot
or being raped.

Not a welcome choice.

What could I do
once your mother teamed up with mother,
but look for help?

Or simply walk out? Choose evasion?

It’s plain I made the right decision,
but I still feel guilty.
I wake up and think about it.

The woman I married instead
remains a friend
though we’ve
been divorced forty years.

I could not have become a poet without her help.

It’s true as heaven and hell
that love hangs on…
as do guilt
and gratitude and song.

I was not wrong,
but the pain of being right hangs on.