The Great War Poem by Jeffrey Obomeghie

Love is an immense battlefield
in which I have fought and lost many skirmishes
As all my ex-wives would tell you
We never quite figured out how to agree to disagree

Years of tortured silence and biting glances
Eyes that burned brighter than a supernova
It only took us a few years but we learned

Learned how to turn our bandoliers into gun-belts
And let off fusillade after fusillade at each other
And when the strafing was done
And when the shelling was done
We picked the shells and children off the floor, kissed and then went out for ice cream
you know the kind with the bright sprinkles

No Treaty of War, no United Nations charter
ever said you couldn't use chemical weapons in your marriage
So we used them
We hid our weapons of marital destruction well
in bunkers buried deep in our hearts like a sacrament that must always stay hidden.

After we had committed arson and paid the lawyers the pastors and the nannies, we walked away in near penury.
Narrowly ducked a charge of perjury.
And when they heard the news that the battle was finally over,
from far and wide they came
friends and anti-friends to share sympathy and apathy.
And watch the nebula that our marriage had become dissolve to icy dust
They gathered to pick up cast-offs and mementos of a marriage that once was but died too soon
Scavenged for shoes, diet pills and bric-a-brac

Years later, we look at each other and wonder
Who won the Great War that we fought and at what price?