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SUSPICION WRONGS I love you; Oh, I love you. She says so overmuch. We seldom speak beyond rehearsed: I love you; Oh I love you. We say it overmuch. Something dreadful have I sensed; I should have known from first experience. Her body has another's scent beneath perfumes that I bestowed. She hides from men I do not know. Oddly so irregular, she lingers late only to complete some task (she says she's put upon, dislikes it much). But, more often, when I call her absence speaks. Returning home, she tells me of her day, the this-and-that of who-and-with the how of her office separates - that dance of those who come in late, who stay beyond allotted lunch, or return home long past hours that she calls appropriate. Anger suggests confession here as she urges me not tell this friend or that of shameless bare disloyalties that raise her wrath. I know from first experience what's this about. A testing out how firm's the ground of right and wrong; what will and won't I tolerate; a barricade against a friend or enemy who offers me such talk of HER with so and so. Beyond all this bible lesson on daily life, we seldom speak. I know from first experience. Whose name? No names. I need not have her give it name. She's tired overmuch or bothered with some pain or simply out of sorts. Where she lays far opposite, a distant breath, her body sends me signs in bed: her shape conforms to other's acts; she recoils from a random touch; She loves me (so she says). I have weekends to myself and her; but most of those she needs for rest. Too many times I've smelled odors of intruder or intruders in my bed. Yet, she has learned to soften some -- or has she learned that softness and her sigh with ease distract and soothe? A woman has a way to tell her man that doting with too many pleas -- I love you; Oh, I love you - and too often giving favors and expensive gifts - all that gets old. An overmuch of love, it can weaken love, become moss and ugly lichen on liaisons. She shall deny the certain truth of what I've grown to know from first experience, 'til denial fades, an old flag battered and bleached through battles no one can see, 'til no profit's earned by keep. I love you; Oh, I love you - we repeat too often perhaps for our children's sake. For them, she will not leave; but she has left: when not at home we travel separate ways. It has been said, Instinct in men will drive them into wrong; women simply wrong their men. No. That's not it. That is not it. Loves do fade as roses will if watered overmuch. © John Horváth Jr |
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Commentary: I set into the old protestant hymnal form of the Puritans. Seemed only proper for a poem about suspecting the other. Seems in relationships that the wronged person has been without reproach. In this day, there'd be quite a few to cast that first stone. It really doesn't matter if he's a fan of public sex in quiet corners of museums as long as he's not caught. The poem comes to be about the loss of integrity and, with it, the loss of justice. Society feels real loss in its smallest units. By the time it is a "social" problem, it's too late. John Horváth Jr Bonfire contributor |