he went home for the weekend

on a trial run before his release

wife, welcome with open arms

love and tenderness and peace

 

soon she changed acted strange

face turned to bones and wrath

body sank into itself, a shadow,

clothes turned to stinking cloth

 

she taunted him and sniggered

old issues raised painful heads

conflict in his mind, confusion,

they ended in separate beds

 

perhaps stop it and kill her off?

why not suggest a suicide pact?

could not live without her, yet

did he have the nerve, the tact?

 

on returning Monday morning

muttering about that evil wife

they fasted him before electric

shocks, needed to save his life

 

ten years Selwyn had grieved

since the death of his wife Sue

dpression his nagging partner

the horror of psychosis, new