I think I owe the corpse another poem,
a short salute to love no longer live,
a tribute to conspiracy at home,
remembering our first November 5.
If 14 lines can be appropriate
reminders of a love affair gone bust,
then this denotes descent to chickenshit
behavior, born of fury and mistrust.

I really wasn’t angry when he left.
The passion that suffused me was relief.
We’d tiptoed for 3 months, beyond bereft,
beneath dismay. As I recall, the chief
result, the benefit I near forgot:
No stress about who’d clean the coffee pot.