Divorce - Who Wins? Poem by Deanna Samuels

Who wins when a divorce erupts
Who of the couple comes up top
Months of arbitration, letters to and fro
Does little to alleviate the pain, the aggravation they go through

And what about the children?
What of them
Torn between two parents they equally love and share
How can they choose to be on whose side
Knowing that soon, there will be a great divide
A choice that may make or mar their life's ambition
Of what they learn, how best to make this transition

Professional costs rise as each day goes by
Claims and counterclaim make it a tie
Hearts are broken without solution
Little will to come to amicable resolution

When settlement is finally reached
Each has reluctantly made a yield though easily breached
More consultations follow to propose a draft
Final conciliation contrives to bring grievance to last
Both blaming the other for such small compromise
With differences settled, who gained from this strife and despise
As two lives go down different paths
Putting once was into the past

Not the divorcing couple who have each gone through hell
Nor the children whose home they can no longer tell
It is the lawyers of course as they pipped up their hourly fee
They are the ones who win, using their skill, once clients agree


Written at Richmond Hill, Ontario - 28th May 2017