My husband dried to desert when we broke
the marriage up, who’d been a fertile ground
when we began. His anger turned to smoke
within; a storm of dust was all I found.

My lover seemed a dynamo who met
my passion with his own, but it took years
to understand his self-corrosive sweat,
the way he ate his guts, his acid tears.

I’ve twice mistakenly took quiet men
for strong, when what they really were was mute.
Before I choose a silent path again,
I’ll take a vow of solitude, and suit
myself with fantasies of what might be:
No self-suppression will beguile me.