Perspectives for moms
Skipping the State
by Marilyn Krysl
Know I did not speak ill of you
when you left me weeping and pregnant
in the suburbs, for that girl with spiked hair
and a tongue ring. I have not defaulted
on the mortgage, or revealed to your enemies
your smoldering secret—how you liked it
when I pretended to have betrayed you with Robert
and you turned on the spit of minor-league jealousy,
the kind with no penalty, since you knew I was
faking. Nor in regard to naughtier longings
did I turn loquacious, nor list for other women
your shortfalls. Grant me, then, the child-support
payments, which, after all, result from your indulgence
and my gullibility, trusting that things you said
in private might be taken literally. Forgetting,
under the spell of your rhetoric, that declarations
men make while inside women
will be retroactively rescinded
on withdrawal. Though you, of all people, had the temerity
to question my fidelity—believe me, the child
is ours. In honor, then, of our son’s innocence,
rise, please, to this fiduciary occasion.
(The Atlantic Monthly - October 2002)
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