by Dorothy Hoffman

Created on: November 10, 2009

Outside the summer sun is warm and bright
but the silence in our home is frigid as the arctic seas -
the home once filled with so much love and promise.
Was it not enough to keep you faithful?
Your loving wife, your beautiful children?
Not enough to stop you straying from our bed?

I grew so tired of the lonely nights, gnawing suspicions,
calls in the middle of the night, hang ups when I answered.
But kept my silence far too long.
The cancer spread too deep before the shouting even started,
crying myself to sleep, alone each night.

We couldn't cut away the sickness, sharp as our anger had grown.
The patient had already expired.
Our home grew quiet as a tomb.
You turned your back on everything we'd built together,
then you turned inside yourself.

I could have forgiven your transgressions, I think,
if only once you'd asked to be forgiven.
It wasn't your betrayal that finally killed our love,
it was your silence.

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