Riff On Wish We Stayed Together Poem by David McLansky

Boy, I’m glad I’m done with you,
Glad you couldn’t see us through,
The objections of your family/friends,
Glad you brought us to an end;
Silly me, I thought suicide,
Without your hand beside my side;
Without your eyes, your daily grace,
You deprived me of your beaming face;
I can see now I was such a jerk,
I know now it would have never worked;
I see now that my ineptitude,
Was a strategy, however crude;
Unconsciously, I refused to move ahead,
I focused on our joys in bed;
I was a child, not a man;
I couldn’t fathom marriage plans;
I confess this happened several times,
How many first loves I had in my prime.
My brides-not-to-be grew ever younger,
My certitude grew ever stronger;
True, I still felt broken when we parted,
One more romp for the broken hearted;
Until I met my true soul mate;
Your divorce caused us to to have to wait;
Then I married with relief,
I felt I was a lucky thief;
You husband no longer wanted you,
At our first kiss I said, “I do.”
I look back on our sad history,
The broken trusts, the misery,
That culminated in our stout union,
That left no doubt, no disillusion;
As for all those loves I left behind,
I didn’t mean to be unkind,
You wanted me against my will
With ambitions that I could not fulfill.
I delighted in your alluring charms,
What pleasure I found in your arms;
But like the bee lured by a drop honey,
Amid bright colored petals on a day that’s sunny,
I was fated to dance from flower to flower,
Romance undulated beyond my power.