Bulletin

A Caldwellian Sonnet

A month ago I started to rehearse
a truce in this last battle of our wars.
I thought to couch the news as "changing course,"
that I'd stay here and you'd go to the shore
house, and we both could think, admitting first
who it was who needed time. Months before
my mind recoiled, mused, accepted: disperse,
my choice. To save a marriage takes a force
of will from two of us, and I refuse.
I see you pace the sentimental boards,
the cabin where our love was underscored
in newly wedded giddiness. You curse
me now. You can't decipher which is worse:
that I abandoned you, or I was terse.