Sometimes, after sex, if you were well
Pleased with the results, especially well,
You would weep, briefly, and I could see
Diana’s moon jelly of tenderness pulse
In your teary eyes, then vanish. Back to being
Us again, two bundles of beings arranged
Parallel to one another under covers or,
As you preferred, under our picnic blanket
In the woods, on a lawn, on a cliff. Marriage.
Coupling. The public and the private faces
Of the special grief that never ends
In death but often begins well beforehand.
Doesn’t really matter who’s doing it, what
The local legislation and the ancient mores
Have to say about it. Bodies compounded
Of bodies, trillions of living cells, pulsing
Like jellies with desire, which is life, desire,
Line up as a pair of chromosomes, whether
The pairing of chromosomes in the event
Is likely, possible, improbable, or impossible.
Then, sooner or later, the ancients so much
Younger than the bodies their ideas inhabit
Will find a way to have their say. You may
Have lived in a time when this uncoupling
Or that coupling were outlawed. You may
Have been an outlaw, in another age, but
Today you are merely a floating awareness
Of a compounded being, holding a sheaf
Of printed paper, stapled by a secretary,
Stating you are uncoupled, again, this time
Not by death but, by definition, by divorce.
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