Poem for April 22

For today’s prompt, Robert Lee Brewer suggests writing a complex poem. “Complex is a complex word,” he explains, “that can refer to mental state, apartments, difficulty of a situation, and so many other complex situations.”

My response:

Tête–à-tête

She thinks she is manic-depressive, she says, using

The language of a generation ago to describe

What I saw every day:

The bursts of creativity, the beautiful melodies,

Whole programs taking shape in a single flash of insight.

These she juxtaposed among the late nights she dragged me out of bed

She said to shore her up

But really just to pull me down and down into her nightmare realm.

 

Did she have a choice?

I say she did.

 

There were those lucid moments when she knew,

When she could see the wreckage in her wake,

But it was too easy to make it someone else’s choice:

Her husband, her friends, her family all gave her the easy out

(And themselves, too, no doubt),

All said she could not help herself,

And therefore I must.

 

Which left me with a choice:

To follow suit, or to chart a different course.

I preferred Plan B,

Which despite its many pitfalls and uncertainties,

Has mostly worked out rather well.

 

Especially for her granddaughters.

 

She pauses, fork poised with the next bite,

Waiting for … what? I’m not sure. Disbelief? Evidence to the contrary?

Reassurance that she is fine

And everyone else is nuts? Yes. Probably that one. That was always my job.

But instead I laugh, my years of anger and misery long since passed.

 

“No,” I say, meaning yes.

“Do tell.”

 

 

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