Marriage (2002)

Time bruised us with its
white knuckles. Death loss
death loss loss loss loss,
those bone ridges
tapped on the pane like
a cruelly insistent breeze.
Days were a sewage of
grief, its tide sucking at
our ankles, hauling us out.
But we didn’t go.
Instead we chose to keep
working at this together.
Sorting it out. Opening
all the doors, building
on what we had, not what
we’d lost. That’s how
marriage survives to this
day: our accomplishment
lies in the thousand minor
moments when we chose to
open the shade and let
it all in. Because we began,
today we begin. Not much
smarter but so much more
alive. Even though it hurts
and hopes are yet small.