Deterioration

It wasn't an easy thing to think you loved him When you were cutting his food And you were wiping his chin To be a mother to your husband You must have built up so much resentment I can only imagine Was it a relief? Driving halfway across the country with your son asleep in the backseat Now your only responsibility Did you feel like a smuggler? I remember feeling like a stowaway To a man who can't hold his son in his arms Or run his fingers through his wife's hair I wonder what else is there? Life feels like limping to the box you'll be buried in Life feels like deterioration He didn't know, though How his leaving would leave us lost and drifting for ten years To feel an absence more keenly than a knife in the sheets Than a bruise turning yellow on your cheek Than a pipe between your loosened teeth Then your only reason for waking up Did you feel like a prisoner? I remember our house as one dimly-lit cell We needed to learn how to love again