Henry VIII & Divorce
Exploring divorce, featuring poetry and prose by Kathy O’Fallon, Paul James Edgar, Lalita Noronha, and Wilderness Sarchild.
TRANSCRIPT
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On November 3, 1534, England broke from the Roman Catholic Church and the pope’s authority and created the Church of England with Henry VIII in charge. But neither the church nor religion is what this episode of Burning Bright is about. It is about Henry VIII, but it’s about how he treated his wives, which as you probably know, was not well.
He divorced Catherine of Aragon after 24 years because she didn’t produce a son, only a daughter. Imagine this from Catherine’s mother, “While My Daughter Fights for Custody” by Kathy O’Fallon.
We’re playing fort under the dining room table,
her mother’s mauve throw guarding the entrance,
closing off the rear, pink pillows supporting
our heads gazing up to the sky of wood.
At two she threw off those diapers, now claims
one day will do construction, can’t wait to drive
an excavator—her first four-syllable word.
Strokes the table’s metal rods I’ve named girders,
though I doubt it can be right, but there’s no escape
to look it up. Besides, I’m trying to stay present.
The collapse of the Baltimore bridge with one swift
undercut just hit the news, and my daughter is hanging
on by a thread. I don’t know what comes next, except
what’s in my midst, a toddler with midnight curls
in rows, like cursives double-spaced.
She traces the holes of embedded screws;
her fingers turn around the bolts, ensure
they’re nice and tight, makes a fist
around a table leg, up and down. Checks
the rods at all four corners with a shake.
I say, this was built to be strong.
She says, stable. I say, yes, stable.
She says, secure. I say, yes, secure.
She says, still. It fills the room.
From her new book Proof of Life, Kathy O’Fallon’s poem “While My Daughter Fights for Custody.”
By all accounts, Henry VIII didn’t let a little thing like marriage get in the way of a good romp in hay with somebody else, usually a much younger somebody else. Here’s an excerpt from Paul James Edgar’s story “Roselawn.”
They sat quietly. Dr. Healy studied Elaine with a bland, kindly expression. “Tell me what’s going on,” she suddenly asked. “My husband’s cheating on me. Most likely with someone in his office. It’s probably been happening off and on with some girl or another since during my first pregnancy.”
“Why stay with him?”
“We’ve built a life. We have children. We have friends. We do things. Richard has a good income as an architect and a promising future. I’m not giving all that up for some bimbo who can’t keep her knees together.”
“Do you have sexual intercourse with your husband?”
“Sure. But not as much anymore.”
“Do you enjoy it?”
“At times. Mostly I’m just glad when he wants me.” Her voice cracked.
“Do you worry about contracting a sexually transmitted disease from your husband?”
“No. I hadn’t thought about it. Richard’s a very careful, clean person.”
“It’s important that you talk to your gynecologist about the possibility of an STD. Do you have sex with other men?” Dr. Healy asked.
“Never once. Only with Richard.”
From Passager’s Winter 2018 issue, an excerpt from Paul James Edgar’s story “Roselawn.”
Henry divorced Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard—he also charged them with adultery and had them beheaded—as well as Anne of Cleves, whom he divorced because he found her unattractive, and Catherine of Aragon. Imagine how the surviving but divorced wives must’ve felt. Here’s an excerpt from “One Year After My Divorce” by Lalita Noronha.
A year after the papers were signed, you sealed your betrayal with wedding vows (Were they vows?). You flew to Las Vegas in the hollow of the night, telling no one, not even the children we made together, and flew to a new life with a new wife, twenty years younger, not much older than your daughter. We learn this in pieces, one by one, like strangers who talk about the weather in elevators, how the summer has gone, the days getting shorter, and all the children will return to school, as I will too – to the cadence and the rhythm of a newer reality, harsher perhaps, or maybe not, harsher, yes – cleaner than death, for in death one never knows where one goes, but divorce, and remarriage so soon after, is revealing – exposing what I should have known, knew in fact, but couldn’t look betrayal and deception in the face– so dazzling is that coin, those two sides of a coin, beauty and youth on one face, the pocks of time on the other; it was all the difference between falling in and out of love.
From Passager’s anthology of 150 years of journal entries Keeping Time, an excerpt from Lalita Noronha’s “One Year After My Divorce.”
That was one version of how those wives must’ve felt. Here’s another, “Only the Body Understands” by Wilderness Sarchild.
a soft thing that purrs in your lap,
a lion gently licking
his mate’s genitals
to awaken her,
a panther pacing in a cage,
the fear that bites your finger
and won’t let go
when you grab the nape
of your cat’s neck
from the dog’s fangs.
Once, you, too, became feral:
against his words
against his fists.
You hissed,
spit,
froze him in place
with your inferno eyes—
the imagined taste
of his blood
on your tongue,
sweet revenge.
You grabbed your kits
and bolted
from the tyranny
of the one
who mistakenly
thought himself
your keeper.
From her book Old Women Talking, Wilderness Sarchild’s “Only the Body Understands.”
To buy Old Women Talking, Keeping Time, Proof of Life, or any of Passager’s books, or to subscribe to, donate to, or learn more about Passager and its commitment to older writers, visit passagerbooks.com.
Passager offers a 25% discount on the books and journal issues featured here on Burning Bright. Visit our website to see what’s on sale this week.
For Christine, Rosanne, Mary, Johnny, and the rest of the Passager staff, I’m Jon Shorr.
Due to the limitations of online publishing, poems may not appear in their original formatting.
