Debates, heated arguments, whispers, gossip
Intimacy has become a social statement
A crisis to fight for, to stand out and picket
Joy has become a point that needs to be proven
Whether she wants to or not.
A sweet demeanor and kind words sheath defiance
They see right through it, her.

Her youth may never be completely bridled by his experience
His experience made null and void just by being in the presence of her youth.
She senses the eyes of sceptics
Struggling hard to attain the coveted self-righteous title of soothsayer
Their legal union is a contentious spectacle
The grief deemed too short-lived for their liking
His newfound happiness, an affront
She will always be that other woman, that young wife of his
A schemer working some angle
Eclipsed by his first love

She could never outshine the deceased
With the dead there is no quarrel, there could never be any wrong
She knows better than to ill-speak the one in the ground
What can she say, than to secretly wish he was unhappy, he was chained to a heinous ogre for a wife
It might have made it easier, a triumphant justification
She, his refuge, his respite rather than a ruin to his reputation
Indignant disrespect placed on her shoulders
Her first, his last
A beginning made possible by an ending
Acutely aware,
She knows her place.