Because I am a poet,
I read about things like the center of skin.
About warm bodies coming together in the dark,
and how it’s the meaning of life
when someone gets it right.
And I know I should write about things
like a moving chest and a naked back.
About the coming together of life in the dark,
about our common desire
and the verbs that it took.
And it should be universal,
but personal.
My moving chest, your naked back.
The notion of marriage,
of children, of daily love.
Shrinking rooms
beneath the surface of
different meaning words.
But I don’t see the dark jaw
in the night,
or the soft center of touch spring alive.
There is effort and a plan.
There is marriage,
a shrinking room,
daily love,
and a baby that eats time.
We do not say flesh when we mean sex.
We say it’s about right.
And, it would be nice.
We confirm how long it’s been
before we ask the other
to get up and make the bedroom
dark.
—
The very generous community writing project VerseWrights posted my poem “A Notion of Marriage” on its home page last week. A big thank you to Carl Sharpe, a former English teacher who now devotes his time to running this dynamic initiative.
This poem was originally published by “The Aviary Review.”