The First Wife’s Tale

I am wiped out. They do not speak my name.
She has it all now – children, goods, the lot.
No contest; I am dead and have no claim.
 
She walks in – the surroundings are the same –
pours tea, snaps roses’ heads. And I shall rot.
I am wiped out and they don’t speak my name.
 
Routines go on; she drives my children home
from school and tucks the baby in his cot.
I won’t protest; I’m dead and have no claim.
 
She entertains his friends – the ones who came
before my time, smiles, savours all she𔃅s got.
I am wiped out. They do not speak my name.
 
You hear faint whispers, hints she has no shame,
but it no longer matters who did what,
considering I am dead, and have no claim.
 
The man we loved gets very little blame;
she did, but now she’s here, and I am not.
I am wiped out and they don’t speak my name,
seeing that I am dead, and have no claim.
 

Merryn Williams

in collection, The First Wife’s Tale, 2006, Shoestring Press,
ISBN 978-1-9048864-6-4

 
back to top

 

 

On the Tideline

Slowly, he came round.
He knew this was the Intensive Care Unit, but he’d been dreaming
of sixty years back, walking Yarmouth sands with his father,
 
who’d told him about Newton,
the discovery of light, how the seven colours
blend into white at last, and of how he had said:
 
I seem to myself to have been like a boy playing
next to the sea, picking up some bright shell or pebble
while before me the mighty ocean lay unexplored.
 
Three doctors sat round his bed.
They introduced themselves as specialists, so he knew
this was crunch time. One said:
 
‘Good afternoon, Mr Smith.
A scientist, aren’t you? Yes, a distinguished scientist.
Four days we’ve been reducing your medication
 
so you can understand what’s going on. It isn’t
good news, unfortunately. If we end the treatment
now, you will die. If we continue, you will
 
still die, some weeks or months from now. It would mean
kidney machines, exhaustion, a long struggle
and no good outcome. What do you wish us to do?’
 
Next to the German Ocean, his father had told him
the shells he liked to pick up were the hard casing
of creatures that lived in the sand or rocks, whose bodies
 
were washed out by the sea when they died. There is no God –
he thought – but I can cope with that. How the old man –
a parson, had grieved when he had made the decision
 
to follow truth step after logical step. He said:
‘I prefer to die now, when I’m in control. Please take
that oxygen mask; it will not be needed’. The February light dribbled away.
 
The grandchildren came in,
in tears, prepared to argue. The girl, in particular, looked
like him. He thought, ‘I’ll walk into the darkness
 
open-eyed, the colours will not be lost, the atoms
regroup themselves.’ ‘I am leaving’, he said, and turned
to the ocean.
 

Merryn Williams

first published in Magma 28, Spring 2004;
in collection The First Wife’s Tale, 2006,
Shoestring Press, ISBN 978-1-9048864-6-4

 
back to top

 

 

Fanny Brawne

So here I am, walking through the Boboli Gardens
decorously with my children, who aren’t his,
who run in late spring sunlight, so much warmer
than in England. They make me look my age.
 
Their faces radiant and they don’t glance backwards,
bunches of spring anemones in their hands.
He said it was the blood of the god Adonis
which fell in bright slow drops, spotting the woods.
 
One day I might go south to Rome, and sit on
the quiet grass of the English cemetery.
His name is writ in water. I’ve told my husband
nothing. It feels like adultery.
 
I know the place only from descriptions
by poets; wandering flocks of sheep and goats
chew on the daisies, and the youthful shepherds
doze briefly near his stone on summer nights.
 
That’s a good dream, but I won’t return to Hampstead
and its chill winds. The wild boar gashed his thigh.
His sister never forgave me for getting married
and I think his friends hated me. When I die
 
they’ll put me far from where he is;
angels and broken lyres will crowd around
my headstone – Frances, wife of Louis Lindon –
and vicious words won’t gore us, underground.
 

Merryn Williams

in collection, The First Wife’s Tale, 2006, Shoestring Press,
ISBN 978-1-9048864-6-4

 
back to top

 

 

The English Disease

Twenty years I knew him,
never said a word
in all our many meetings
his wife could not have heard.
 
Talked about the weather
(the English never change),
work, of course, the Test Match;
he noticed nothing strange.
 
Much the same as usual
my life is chugging on.
Twenty years I knew him,
another ten have gone.
 
But, waking in the small hours,
I sicken, just the same,
to see those lovely features
in the crematorial flame.
 

Merryn Williams

in collection, The First Wife’s Tale, 2006, Shoestring Press,
ISBN 978-1-9048864-6-4

 
back to top