The new generation doesn’t wed.
Better to save what you can
before Elon Musk amasses it.
Now they call marriage
“corpse buying”
and dress in white lace
for Halloween.

Yes,
I know I am a fool
but I like being married
my ring an anvil on which to
materialize commitment
like rain
in a chapped world
like stones
racing across the Death Valley floor.

I would stay stubbornly betrothed
if only to keep clouds in the sky
even when they sadden me.
A teenager told me he couldn’t imagine
a happiness sufficient to support marriage.
I told the teen I couldn’t imagine
a security sufficient not to.

As puzzling as it is to ponder
a future above water,
each desert evening would crush me
without the weight of weather’s promises
obscuring the stars’ glaring judgment.

Yes,
the earth is a lifeless rock.
I know.
No life exists without imagination.

Protect me from what I know too well:
that I will die before an infinite trajectory
hungry to my last breath
and insatiable past it.

But to get there I must first spend
a lifetime watching the moon set
and find a strategy to keep my heart beating.

Easier to walk on the ocean floor
with my hand in another’s
than through a sea of sand dunes
alone
and easier to maintain my grip
with fingers that bear rings too heavy to release.

Praying for rain in unison
is still merely prayer
until the flash flood comes.