Housekeeping

They reached the edge of the world

   on that rainy day 

      they'd been saving for 



all those years

   they'd gunnysacked 

      gripes and bickering 



over whose turn it was to turn 

   the conjugal bed towards the moon

      on any given night,



if quibbles on the forest floor 

   were better swept 

      in fall or spring,  



or whether the bowl that spilled 

   regret might've been stirred 

      more caringly.



And in that tempest at the brink,

   shivering and vertiginous, they couldn't 

      come to terms with leaving



their stockpile of annoyances 

   out in the rain: would 

      they be cleansed, 



or slide, lathered in mud,

   unceremoniously 

      over the edge?

© Maxianne Berger