Doug Anderson: Waiting for the Marriage Counselor

The skeletal bride and groom in the little glass box.
The sugar skulls.
Let us love one another and not wake the graveyard
with our bickering.
How we make war on our lives: as if we deserve
more than a gleam of light caught in the fall
from womb to grave.
Scrabbling all the way for our portion of the longing.
That night in the desert reaching up to pick
the cold fruit of the sky.
The flesh tangle of our loving that would look
on film so slapstick and yet for us
was that one pair of angels who in the great expulsion
flew up above heaven instead.
Help me up the hill and yes you will need me too.
And, blessedly, let us shut up and love the imperfection
of our ripening past sell-by.
There, that bird. And our old blind dog. And the tomato
from your garden cut perfectly in half.
And our hands folded like birds waiting for the storm.

—

Copyright 2015 Doug Anderson. From Horse Medicine published by Barrow Street.