"Let's have lots of babies
and grow old."
He told her in a card.
Six years before she left
and one before the birth
of her last three children.

"Let's have lot's of babies
and grow old."
He promised her that birthday,
on an over the top card
that clearly showed
the light in which he saw her.

"Let's have lots of babies,
and grow old."
He begged her
as she packed her things,
us along with them.
Leaving him with an empty heart
and empty drawers.

"Let's have lots of babies,
and grow old."
He scrawled in his neatest chicken scratch.
The only thing that left in a drawer
years after she changed her mind.

Or perhaps she always knew,
and the day she took my fathers life
was the first day she quit lying  to herself.