The End Of A Marriage Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

The End of a Marriage
I took the boat ferry from my hometown to Newcastle town
stayed in a B & B hotel bought a used car and drove to the Wirral
booked into a hotel and visited my wife she was busy getting her
daughters children to bed, when that was done, she needed a bath
then it was ten o`clock I was getting tired; she came down dressed
in a bathrobe had a towel on her head and wore lipstick
I had just come to talk, and the house reeked of children`s vomit
the idea of sleeping with her made me cringe.
Told her I was not feeling well and bad my farewell drove back
to my hotel, parked and opened a bottle of wine relieved to be free
from that part of my life; drove to Southampton I think and took
a ferry to Spain, from there the slow scenic road to Portugal.
The breakdown of our marriage made me sad but not unhappy
I had married her at a time when I was depress when the fog lifted
I wanted to be free of a relationship that lacked the warmth of
comradeship, a working class woman who was also a racist and her
anti-Semitic stance was not based on logic
I resented the small mindedness reading -THE SUN newspaper in a pub
mentality- and refused to help when I struggled to run a café; something
about her fingernails… A lie of love was over it was past midnight and
the music stopped it was time to leave the matrimonial rostrum.