Marriage

Marriage

For the longest time, I couldn’t imagine it
Being something I would ever want.
The elation of the ceremony, guests
Waving and whistling from the dock,
Then the thrill of those first days,
The dry hills still in sight, generating
Love under the bee-sweetened moon,
Until, suddenly — the open sea. 
It wasn’t so much the storms I feared 
As it was the doldrums. Weeks rocked
In the cribs between the ribs of waves,
The clock of the wheel sans hands,
The compass needle all atremble
With its unconsummated love for the north.
Cards and chess on the deck. Glee 
Of minor victories, sting of tiny defeats.
Which is to say, the ring in the soap dish, 
Joint filing, the ghoulish glow of screens.
Of course, something like wind 
Would always come up — the great gusts 
Of children, the gales of parents’ last breaths.
But always after, this drifting, 
That business of the sails gone slack,
Until, one day, one of us would cry 
Out that they could see land, handing
The binoculars to the doubting other. 
Sure enough, the watermark of hills
Against a page of sky scrawled
With the Cyrillic of the first birds, then
Fishermen with their magnanimous nets,
Their sons running along the strand.
Headstones of the headlands. Of course 
One of us would have to disembark 
Shakily before the other could.
The interim would be widowhood.
Then, the dull desultory knocking
Of the hull against the dock forever.
What had it all been for? Shore to shore.
But today, our first day, I turn away
From all the whistling and the waving
To see strong sun and salty wind 
In your golden hair. For the longest time, 
I couldn’t imagine marriage would be 
Something I could possibly want. But 
Today, love, I couldn’t be happier.