And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, ‘Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?’ He answered, ‘Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female,’ and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.’ They said to him, ‘Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?’ He said to them, ‘Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.” ~ Matthew 19:3-8, ESV

Repeat button on,
         Rewind in progress.
                                                  Push Stop, then
Play, stereo compatible surround sound.
                          Increase volume; listen; precisioned mechanism.

                                       Garbled…garroted…garbage…
                                                Clarity gone when
                                                 Cleaving’s done.

                          Black hole swallowed portion non-retrievable.
      Blank spot — tape erased:
                              No who, no when, no where, no why…
                                            No face, no trace,
                                            Just empty space.

              Memory — jejune
                        Name that tune.

~ I first posted this poem on iVillage.com on March 22, 2000