Death of a Marriage

They reached home,
she went in and locked the door,
he drove away . . . all these years
and they did not even say,
‘‘Good night.’’
A house is only a statistic
when the hearth fire dies
in a bed of stale ashes,
stale as past promises.
Lares and penates will not stay
where the clenched hand,
bitter words, angry tears
insult their benevolence.
A package of letters tied
with a ribbon keeps company
with a diary whose pages curl
in the morning mist as they wait
on the curb for the garbage man.