My kenspeckle lover, well-known for deceit,
you cannot resist every siren you meet.
If you’re depressed, they brighten your day.
Do you think that I’m so naive and fey
that I do not notice the scent you bring home
when you return from wherever you roam?
If I kept a notebook of all of the times
you were unfaithful and caught them in rhymes,
they would be encyclopedic in length,
devoid of affection and brute in their strength.
I’d be better off, they would prove, if alone,
for “flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone,”
considering all of your dalliance and sin,
if applied to you, would be spread out so thin
that the bone left for me would be naught but a sliver,
my portion of flesh just a scrap of your liver,
the rest of you spread out so far and so wide,
apportioned to lovers you thought you could hide.
I’ve packed up your bags, keeping one of them free
to return the part of you you left with me.
Take it along with you as you depart.
I’ve already filled that part of my heart
that you have left empty these many long years
with one who’s supplied what you left in arrears.
Prompts today are: kenspeckle, better, notebook, deceit and depressed.




