Laundry Song.

You had your reasons for leaving,

Mostly to do with preserving what

Was left of your own sanity.

I didn't blame you... no, actually

I did blame you for lacking imagination.

You called us a "calamity",

Which I thought was a tad hyperbolic,

But then, like all frustrated writers,

You were prone to exaggeration.

Couldn't you see I was broken,

In desperate need of repair?

Perhaps you could and didn't care.

I remember the moment you told me

- tearfully, fearfully, yet nearly happily -

That you were extracting your compass point

From my absurd arc, exacting a revenge

Both devastating and necessary:

We were back from Yarra Park, having taken

Our deranged mutt of a dog for a walk,

Where its behaviour had sparked an argument,

Me screaming I had never wanted a dog,

That it was all about you,

You screaming you had always wanted kids,

That it was all about me.

I stood there shocked, undone.

How had I missed your need to breed?

When had it been spoken of? On some

Hot summer evening when my hearing was split

Between the whir of a fan and the shit on TV?

Where had I misplaced this detail

So definitive of you?

Not that it matters now.

I hang here on our Hills Hoist,

Still moist from all these tears

And the sweat each night rings from me,

Wanting nothing but for you

To come back and unpeg me,

To pat and fold me gently,

To lay me in the laundry basket

Of your love.

© shaun patrick green 2018