I drag my marriage
through childhood,
past my mother’s critiques
and sister’s insanity,
expose the woman
my father longed to be,
strip them all down
and parade them
full monty,
our sordidness
splayed across the floor
like shepherd’s pie
smashed into linoleum –
a mess of madness
and emotion and
cranked out fables:
denial served up
as acceptable fare.
I am obsessed –
driven by compulsion
to cleanse the sticky,
rotting muck oozing
through the cracks
of our faulty foundation,
need to sanitize floorboards,
unearth explanations
salvage what thread
of sensibility remains
before this orgy
of dysfunction
derails progress
drags my childhood
through marriage.
One Woman's Quest 