Marriage

Because what if I'm 60 years old and not married,
all alone in furnished room with pee stains on my underwear
and everybody else is married! All in the universe married but me!
--Gregory Corso

For eight hundred dollars--rent money,
a few nights at the club--the young
Puerto Rican with light brown hair will marry
the man from Ecuador. To the courthouse, he brings
white plastic roses and mums.
He will stay home while she dances.

These days the standard marriage lasts five years
my neighbor said. He speaks from experience.

What I'm trying to say is despite the heart and lungs
and the same rotating shoulders
in their ball and socket joints, we cannot
understand each other.

I cannot understand why an Indonesian man
would leave his betrothed to study
accounting in Austin,
why a woman would end her marriage
to adopt a child.

After the CEO's ex-wife died, he
telecommuted and cooked
for the children he left three years before.
There was, it seems,
a reconciliation during chemo.

Strokes, biopsies--some weeks all my students
have family emergencies.
It was just a little bit of cancer Nicole tells me and pinches
her thumb and finger together. I match her casual distance.
My mother too I say, and we go on
to Chris' father who drinks too much.
But this week, everyone is getting married!
Anal proclaims marriage
the basic unit of all happiness.
Matt glows. Svetlana blushes.

I am waiting for the five year update
when the friend who said to The New York Times,
after that break up I never thought
they'd get back together--that's true love
could call back and say, right.

At the wedding reception, there were daisies
with purple ribbons. There were cupcakes
with homemade frosting.
The bride wore white.

We danced. We danced and danced.

Deborah Bacharach
Potomac Review, Fall 2014