Early Breakup
It took me all those years till I could I see it.
You had to leave. You had to get away.
Your self was waiting, and you had to be it.
To claim what you could be, you could not stay.
You told me that the safety that I offered
was too safe, too constricting, too secure.
Although you did not speak of it, you suffered.
You wanted freedom, space. You wanted more.
How could you? was my thought. How could you leave me?
We were a couple, comfortable and fond.
What right had you to break free and deceive me?
We had a bond. How could you break that bond?
I finally saw it. What you said was true.
Our safety zone kept you from being you.
*
My safety zone kept you from being you.
I didn’t mean to be selfish, but I was.
Togetherness was pleasant, it was true,
and both of us held fast to it because
we had so much in common and we shared
adventures, books, our sense of humor; all
long-married couples share. We laughed and cared.
Yet, in my absence once, you heard the call
of something, someone other, that prevailed,
and that was that. Our world came crashing down.
I saw that something fundamental failed.
I had become a cuckold and a clown.
How could that happen? I had had no fears.
Then, all made sense. But that had taken years.
Bruce Bennett is the author of ten books of poetry and more than thirty chapbooks. His second new and selected, Just Another Day in Just Our Town: Poems 2000-2016 (Orchises Press, 2017), was published in 2017. His most recent chapbook is a collection of ekphrastic poems, Images into Words, a collaboration with poet Jim Crenner, published by the Dove Block Project in Geneva, NY. He co-founded and was an editor of both Field and Ploughshares. From 1973-2014 he taught at Wells College and is now Emeritus Professor. In 2012 he was awarded a Pushcart Prize. His poetry website is https://justanotherdayin our town.com.