"Weddings," A Poetry Post

You can have a wedding
standing behind a harvester's pickup truck
with the tailgate down in a pair of
dirty overalls
sweating in the July sun.

You can have a wedding in the
hallway of a trauma unit
wearing a hospital gown
being introduced as "Mr. and Mrs."
to the sound of heart monitors and
oxygen masks.

You can have a wedding in a
tiny chapel in the back of the base
with a Sergeant officiating
just before you ship out to the desert to
save the wives and husbands and lovers of others.

But you can't have a marriage under
just any circumstances.

There ain't no binding together without
shared bruisings under life's merciless whippings.

There ain't no bliss without
sacrificing bits of
individual happiness.

There ain't no excitement without
standing commitment to the
energy of one-ness.

You can have a wedding
jumping out of a plane
in Vegas
in a bathing suit with
only one chute.

But once you land and
put your feet flat on the ground with
this woman or
this man,
you gone have to cultivate
an atmosphere of
marriage.

Marriages are
not so resilient
without structure.

-T. D. James-Moss