Getting Out

I really liked this poem. Although in my initial reading I thought the tone of the poem would be more negative, it became clear to me that nostalgic would be a better description. From the title I think I automatically assumed that the "break up" taking place in the poem ended rough. Using the term "getting out" instead of something like "going our separate ways" definitely seems very negative. In the poem however, I think there is much more support to the claim that the speaker and her former lover will miss each other. I think the best example is in line 18 where the speaker says "still I'm startled by men who look like you". Another example that manifests the nostalgia for the love they shared can be found in the final lines where the speaker is describing their last encounter together and how they cried in front of the lawyers holding hands, and then finally let go. This seems so contradictory to the beginning of the poem. In the first stanza the speaker describes their relation as being somewhat forced. She goes as far to say that they are like "inmates". When I read that line I immediately got the image that they felt trapped in the bond of marriage even though they weren't in love. By the end of the poem however it's obvious that they still care for one another- but sometimes just caring about each other isn't enough to make a marriage work. I could really relate to this idea because my parents got divorced when I was in third grade. They still care about each other to this day but they felt that they couldn't make their marriage work. After they separated they started to get along much better- which is what I think the speaker and her husband decided to do.