Mattress

A marriage doesn’t end in court but on a mattress,

side edges hugged in opposition to avoid a touch.

A divorce decree is merely an announcement,

public testimony that two people who were once in love,

were melded into one heart, mind and body lost their bearings, drifted so apart that they can’t find the other

even in the darkness of a room they always shared.

The gossips want to know who cheated and the judges

beat the brave one down with wisdom based on nothing

more than their own situations, their own dreams, their

standards of what has to, has to, be. They cannot know

and will not see that one person can’t create an Us

without another who is just as focused on the wonder of it all,

each moving closer and pursuing or it comes undone,

unraveled, leaving space between them that solidifies,

becomes a barrier, a wall of hurt and accusation,

indifference, neglect. At first it may be breachable,

the other reachable across the coolness of the sheets,

but if it’s not, it’s not, and there is nothing

to be done but grit your teeth and hold on tightly to that edge

...or leave.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2020