by Brett Rutherford
After a note by
Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1836
I, unmarried and alone,
am the undertaker’s bane.
You, with your dozen offspring,
have paid in advance
for a dozen funerals.
With luck, what’s left of me
will feed only a solitary worm.
by Brett Rutherford
After a note by
Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1838
Explaining her ever-
attentive spouse
to a friend-confidante:
It was quite some years ago,
you see — the two of us,
one at each end
of the house, and one
at the other — my kitchen,
his book-piled den.
Iron-willed we were
in mutual detestation.
He might have taken an axe;
I might have learned poisons.
Then quietly, discreet
as only a Boston lawyer knows how,
we were silently divorced.
So here we are.
He lives at his club.
He brings me gifts,
I give him favors.
Each day is a first —
at will, the last.
It’s a great deal of fun
and keeps both priests
and hangman away.
Look, here he comes,
grinning with expectation.
Is that ruby? And only one?
I might just feign a migraine.
Look none the wiser, my dear.
