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I fade

Like picture

Too long sun exposed

Power once possessed

Weakened disappeared

All ebbs

I am not alone

The tide moves out

As well as in

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this is now the place

            surrounded by life's

                    accumulated things

                    we can resolve

                    there will be permanence

                    finally staying here until -

                    until what - the ending or

                    simply to move on

                    don't stop -

                    it's the American way

DREAMS

Paper collages

    pages torn from life

    pasted for the night

Giant blenders

    shaping reality

    for our psyche’s needs

Cornell boxes

    holding our angularities

    to worsen our stresses

Spider webs

    sticking when brushed                                                     

    holding the unknowable

DIVORCE                         

The legalities were brief:

A few questions, answers by my lawyer,

The judge gave the OK. It was no-fault,

At least in the law’s eyes.  Where the fault is

When the joining is dissolved

Is more than I or the law can tell.

Did I feel free? A question for time.

I got my papers and thanked all.

When I left the courthouse I entered

A small church across the street.

Why I don’t know.  It was there.

Maybe I remembered the feeling

After the marriage and sought

The same feeling now.  I knelt.

As I bowed my head to pray

I noticed my glasses were wet.

Reaching I realized I was crying.

Why?  I had dissolved a marriage

That had been a burden for years

Yet I cried. Relief, sorrow, emotions

Unanticipated.  I cried. 

*     *     *

Biographical Note: Joe Quinton is a recent resident of Chester County, Pennsylvania after lives spent in Providence, Boston, West Palm Beach and Kingsville, Texas.  He came to poetry after retiring and seeking some form of expression.  He finds it serves as a journal of life today and a memento of what was once.  Both themes appear and reappear in his poetry.Joe is a regular contributor to Creek Road Gang. See the Author Index for Poetry to find more of his work.