right hand pointing

 

     
  How We Got Here

R. T. Castleberry
 

 

 

There is a second truth, a last word:
We would never have married.

When we should sleep
we speak in tatters, in protest, in stammers.
I recognize the cleverness of your piety,
a preference for dissection over disclosure.
As I abandon mission habits and history
I dread the weighing of my worth,
the complacence of your calculation.
It may not matter I have done
nothing I know is wrong.
There is a rage
in consent and control, in questions
men and women ask and never answer.
Cruelly as I can
I try to remember if it was Marseilles, midwinter
or the Myanmar station when I loved you.
 

 

 

  

A writer, wit and social critic, R.T. Castleberry has published work both nationally and internationally, most notably in Another Chicago Magazine, Poet Lore, Borderlands, Concho River Review, Illya's Honey, Common Ground Review, Snake Nation Press and Pacific Review. He is co-editor of Curbside Review poetry journal  and associate poetry editor of the online literary journal, Ardent .