You Needed Somewhere to Stay

by Elizabeth Weir

            First Month

Divorced, your ex dead by suicide,

you, alone, house sold, nowhere to live.

Together, we planted a young shrub

from your garden in our good soil,

Image credit: Mohamed Nohassi on Unsplash

your spiky humor enlivening our house.

             4th Month

You teased, quick to criticize. Sharp-edged,

you became a challenge, a knife that liked

to nick and slice: as a mother, I was too soft,

as a wife, too anxious to please,

had a compliant personality. You, a boot,

that tracked grit and anger into our home.

            Fifth Month

My husband, withdrawn, our boys, quarrelsome.

You took my car, kept it overnight,

told me what I could and couldn’t say

to mutual friends. You’d become a bludgeon,

a blister, a blight in our lives. Your shrub thrived,

grew thorns—a buckthorn, a vigorous invasive.

Go! Pack your bags and leave our home.

I dug up your buckthorn. Roots clung,

thorns bloodied my arms. I crushed it in the trash.

***

Elizabeth Weir

Elizabeth Weir’s High on Table Mountain, was nominated for the 2017 Midwest Poetry Book Award. Kelsey Books published her second book, When Our World Was Whole, which was selected for the National Poetry House Showcase. Her work has been published in many journals, including Comestock Review, Agates, The London Reader, Gyroscope and Adana.