Mickey Mouse Pancakes

The sun sprayed voluminous rays on the backyard
            where I paced in a sleepless walk among autumn leaves;

Your six-year-old daughter was under covers on her
            bed; wide awake, she screamed in her room that

time we made love in yours. “I have to take care of her,”
            you said, and I responded, “yes, you should,” but thought,

“what about me?” That summer, I mowed, trimmed and pruned
            the grass and bushes, prompting a neighbor to tell me

“you’re good for her.” Before I arrived, the dried-up
            yard was spotted with weeds and dirt, and nothing

flowered of any color. I transported truck
            loads of debris from the backyard to the city dump,

teeming with flies and seagulls; I patched the leaky roof
            and re-painted the house. When your daughter got sick

for days with chicken pox boils on her skin—she laid
            down on the floor rug and wailed—I took care of her

while you worked, all the time watching you learn to hate me.
            My own two kids visited on weekends, and you

seemed to close down, unable to cull forth a warm tone,
            to say, “maybe your kids are important, too.”

I hated this feeling—that everything was up for
            negotiation and one’s children were bargaining chips.

I hated this sense that I could never belong here.
            Regardless of how much I made this house into

a home, it would never be home for me. Sometime later,
            after we broke up in a tearful fit, arguing

over whom did what, and what belonged to whom,
            after months of the most barren of nights, I asked

my children what they remembered about you.
            They recollected the way you made them Mickey Mouse

pancakes, with batter carefully placed on a heated pan,
            and how butter and syrup slid off the browned ears;

they recalled the stories you told and trips to the park.
            I couldn’t remember any of this. What came

to mind was you leaving our bed, turning away
            from me, and your way of hurting by not responding;

how much I wanted you to just linger in my arms,
            to know that I cried without crying, and that losing

you was releasing a vital part of myself.
            My kids reminisced about pancakes, hide-and-seek

games and the constant bickering with your daughter.
            I only recalled your back to me once too often.