The Prodigal by Anne Britting Oleson

He’s gone again, and I can’t help
breathe a sigh of relief.
The father of my children,
one dead, three living, including
a three months’ child, a girl
who disappointed in every way save
that he called her by his true love’s name.
Not mine--never mine:
he’d rather she’d borne the babe
than I; he’d urged her on me
as a nurse. She, who bears
his soft caresses and softer words,
while I receive only his animal seed,
bring forth in pain his heirs.
He’s gone again, taking his opium-
induced night fears with him, leaving
me, this spring, to step outside
into the weak promise of sun,
to watch the boys, long pent,
frolic along the river bank.