I removed the wedding ring

but I could not remove the marriage

the connivances the jokes

the perpetual conversations

the end of course.

On a hot night recently, fingers swollen

or maybe just swollen joints -

age does that -

I removed it

and left it on the dresser.

‘It hurt’ I said.

‘Yes,’ you said, ‘I know.’

Richard W Halperin's most recent collections are Shy White Tiger (Salmon Poetry, 2013) and The Centreless Astonishment of Things (Lapwing, Belfast)