SISYPHUS’S AFFAIR

SISYPHUS’S AFFAIR

SISYPHUS’S AFFAIR

Just when it seemed his marriage had settled
into sleepy comforts and an occasional boost
from a blue pill, he learned what the luckiest
of adulterers come to know: you don’t need
some large dissatisfaction to motivate
an affair, some overarching complaint.
A door would open in a far away city;
inside, everything felt like its own good reason.
Of course the lying unnerved and diminished him,
but after a while it felt strangely humane,
better, he told himself, for all concerned.
He took pride that he gave his divided attention
wholly to whomever he was with.
His wife was his better half by more than half.
His lover was the everything
he allowed himself partially to have.
When their sex turned into love
adultery suddenly felt wrong—the word,
he wanted another word for what they did.
And there were the bones of his marriage
in plain sight, meat on them still.
For a moment he longed for the old days
when there were gods to take offense,
when a man who wanted too much
would be reduced to size
with a life-long redundancy or thunderbolt.
But, no, there’d be nothing so neat.
It came to a choice, and he chose everything.
He left almost everything behind.