They have survived a marriage.
Behind this barrier of rusty tricycles
worn dolls in deathly poses
supper smells
wearying the morning
Leonard in undershirt, his slender arms
for music built, not labor, smiles
beyond disorder and the untrimmed rose
in the window, the ungainly fruit
weighting his wife’s body:
Marjorie: from the wedding frame
a maytime tree tender with lace looks out
her eyes unbounded as a flight of birds
And the years await her.
Here by the careless rose with tumbling petals
in a rented space, “but the violins—
Leonard made them all—” she says; and the young man
courting the maytime creature thrills
at her pride in his slender arms shaping the wood
to music: and so wins her: bride forever
blooming in her frame among the violins.
Now he lifts one, summons three bars of rhapsody
her voice detailing weekend drudgeries
while doors bang open and the children scream
“You did it!” “No, you did!”
guards with her thickening arm
their future, under the soiled skirt
Life in its awkward arc.