marriage


Once you've felt the force of life's
tsunamis, stood at the edge
of its unknown distances,
you need someone
boating around, out in the bay -
with a deep keel
and a life belt.




*


HABITATION
(By Margaret Atwood)


Marriage is not
a house or even a tent

it is before that, and colder:

the edge of the forest, the edge
of the desert

the unpainted stairs

at the back where we squat
outside, eating popcorn

the edge of the receding glacier

where painfully and with wonder
at having survived
this far

we are learning to make fire