Writing Her Back

I could never forgive my second wife.            
She could have left me            
in the normal miserable way that love grows mean            
the way backs turn, insults are thrown            
and homes broken, but she            
was especially hard, especially crazy            
or both.        
In hindsight            
we never really knew each other            
well enough to tell.            
           
Her appeal            
was beautiful and wicked            
as a flesh eating flower            
over-ripe and swaying            
in her demented garden            
swung upon the tideshift winds.        
            
           
She'd already sent me packing,            
and with a few false claims,         
bought ninety days for free.           
While plans were laid            
a truck was packed            
and in the night
she took the children            
and disappeared forever.            
           
Now I hated her for years            
wasted decades writing to her            
imagined conversations    
that got me nowhere,            
just emptied out what was right with me            
into all those late nights scrawling out what was wrong.            
Hatred is taxing.    
It takes its share of time            
eats the healthy part of lives           
leaves hardness where there should be toughness.            
Dates that get missed are carefully collected            
bundled like bouquets of regret            
where once they spread out forward        
like fields of unspent days.            
           
Now, as the nights grow cool again            
and the heat of my head has had twenty years            
to vent that steam            
a fresh smell blows off the lake            
that signals time to prepare for a new season.            
Today I stop trying to write back            
to her            
and start the long process            
of writing her back            
out of my life.