The Passion of the Wife

[heslopian]

Thank you for your great feedback tectak I'll use most of your suggestions, as they tidy up the form really well. I love your idea of putting a semi-colon after "Him". That will be more thought-provoking. I also see your point about the brackets. I've always thought they symbolised an aside as much as a cofidence. To evade confusion I'll remove them.
With "vise" I was referring to this kind of tool: http://image.made-in-china.com/2f0j00SCZ...-FT5C-.jpg, as a metaphor for an agonised expression.
In the first line of verse nine, I put a comma there because what follows it is part of the same sentence, so if I put a full stop that line and verse eight would feel like an unfinished conjunction.

Thanks for the thoughtful feedback penguin I wondered about that verse's length too.

Thanks for the kind feedback Bilbo Do you think I should remove both verse four's last line and five's first? I'm not sure I can have one without the other. I'd feel weird about sacrificing the tercet symmetry, but like I told addy there's an uneven number of lines and no meter anyway, so it could be sacrified.