To my niece's ex-boyfriend (and her new one)

To My Niece's Ex-Boyfriend (and her new one)

My niece is happy
now that you've gone
though not from your leaving
(nor your arrival)
but from the revival of the vital in her.

You helped her through difficult times
But don't mis-assign
the savior and the saved.

we see clearest what we fear most
and the child-abandoned you
corded the child-abandoned her
yours twined into and sheathed
the raw jute cables of her girlhood.

You were trained to think it your job
to solve every problem, hoist each burden
but some problems root like cancer
and the people we love
most deserve to carry their own
and grow into their skin.

I don't blame you
for crumpling under the stricture of silence
or the impossible weight of her family secret.

Only that you witheld
the honesty she merited
that you discarded the meat of trust
and polished its cracked shell.

Your storming out
for a newer lover
overvoiced the sweet song of her soul
but only for a time.
Only for a time.

I watched her hack those gross tendrils
like a macheted explorer
in the land of confidence;
noted their sudden recoil
and their sure subtle groping
like blackberries, like wild grape,
like the creep of her stepfather's hand
or the silent evaporation of her
mother's objections
and the alkaline tufa of self-doubt

love rose from below
as it fell from above
quickened the seeds of causation
long present but napping
until happiness unrolled
its fragile green body.

In the mental painting I framed
you, sullen, are a few hills over
looking back, demanding to explain,
like the damned guided hellward

she kneels
baptised in the faith of self,
damp with absolution,
the shine of truth glinting from her hair
as a gentle mist freckles the surface

(and you, shirtless, stomping
your rain-evoking steps,
grinning as you grasp
for a lamp post)