Divorce Song

Jameson Fitzpatrick

A man who is probably my husband sails by. 
But I just see a sailboat, not who steers it. 
But I picture a man, in the gender of things. 

My husband who you will not meet.
He’s off, I don’t know, marshalling.
Ideas, not soldiers. Sailing helps him think. 

I used to join him. Then we argued.
For a decade we argued. And sometimes 
sailed, though I was admittedly mostly 

decorative, a mermaid on the prow. 
Whether I brought him better luck 
is not my weather to tell. I cost him. 

Time. He costs me. More.

Copyright © 2022 by Jameson Fitzpatrick. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on March 25, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.