Deteriorating Marriage

Getting Out is a fairly simple poem about a divorced couple and their relationship.  In the poem, figurative language is used to describe the emotions between the two "ex-lovers".  The wife who narrates the poem describes their year of marriage as a prison.  "That year we hardly slept, walking like inmates / who beat the walls (lines 1,2)."  She later describes every nights as another refusal.  Ultimately, this figurative language reveals why the marriage was unsuccessful.  The two couldn't live together.  They felt imprisoned living together and began to argue with each other.  Eventually, their feelings for each other wore out to the point where they divorced.  The final image of them joining hands while walking apart shows that although they couldn't be happily married, they still feel connected and missed the days when they were happy together.