The Split

She loved him. I always knew that, but what was done was done We were not consulted, not us or anyone We were like collateral damage, what happens when two bombs collide We were just children and our mom just a young bride With high hopes and childlike faith that God would dry our tears After the fights, the forgiveness and the years He was the love of her life, her love deeper than the sea Higher than the sky, now nothing but a memory? And though we both survived the series of wives The chain of broken dreams in all our lives I am hit once again not only with what happened and how But even more, with the shrapnel wounds that last even until now And yet the beauty and precision of the poems she could write Have changed me more than I can now describe Though perhaps I might someday achieve her level of skill What I saw with my own eyes conquered me against my will And I’m shaken having only begun to grasp the beauty and the depth Of my mother’s fractured heart and of love stronger than death When she was gone for two long months, was that the start So early, of what finally split our lives apart?