This next poem is a villanelle but in tetrameter rather than the usual pentameter.

Complaint for Absolute Divorce

A little something to endorse:
Download attachment, print and sign
Complaint for Absolute Divorce,

the lawyer wrote with casual force.
Yet why complain? The suit was mine.
A little something to endorse

“Complaint”: sheer poetry, of course,
more lofty than Lament or Whine.
Complaint for Absolute Divorce:

so well-phrased, who could feel remorse?
That “Absolute” was rather fine.
A little something to endorse

the universe as is: for worse,
for better. Nothing by design.
Complaint for Absolute Divorce,

let me salute you, sole recourse!
I put my birth-name on the line –
a little something – and endorse
the final word, then, in “Divorce.”

from Nothing by Design (Alfred A. Knopf, 2013), © Mary Jo Salter 2013, used by permission of the author

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