I want to marry you a few more times.

It’s wonderful to feel
but a feeling can be true
without being whole,

and a feeling can be a temporary thing,

whereas love
is true or it is not.

The first feeling was just that;
I recognized the truth.
I recognized you.

Today I feel the same
but it doesn’t matter what I feel
I am saying I love you
and that can never change.

I didn’t know you’d become
the greatest mom I’d ever seen.
I didn’t know
how perfectly your fingers
would fit between

or how you’d look looking at me.

Sometimes I daydream
about the end of the world
because that’s how it feels—
isn’t that absurd:

Temporary Armageddon.

I stand always slightly in front of you,

a wave of cinematic crimson
nuclear winter,
Hell’s pure destruction unleashed
approaches
but I feel no fear.

At the moment of impact
I am only the man who loves you

and because it is my daydream
nothing can touch you

and the billowing pain carries on around you.

I don’t think I was ever so locked in on a project
as I was shopping for a diamond for your finger.

Brilliant round, 1.11, VVS2, that was the one.

Excellent cut, polish, symmetry— beauty from purpose.
You may not know
but it has a medium blue fluorescence.
The cut makes a near colorless stone
scatter white light
into flashes of extraordinary color;
while ultraviolet light, hidden in sunlight
invisible to the eye
brings out a visible blue

that the diamond emits itself.

And it isn’t as flawless as it seems.
It contains very very slight inclusions,
invisible microscopic imperfections
impossible to see
beneath its stunning shine.

A thing doesn’t have to be flawless
to be perfect.

I don’t know why
but I want to take you to a ballroom in pajamas.|
I want to take you to a farmhouse in a gown.

It’s remarkable and terrifying
to wake after years and be a man

stupid, blind and burdened

fighting artificial armageddons
for a wife who must wonder where I am.

I too wonder
looking around;
where is myself?

Why didn’t I just turn around
and walk away?

I know who I am. That’s a simple truth.

I look to you
to tell me where we are.
My light inside the dark.

If there’s one thing I hope
to teach our son

it’s that, “nothing else matters”
is never true.
Everything matters

but we get to choose
what matters the most.

I highly recommend choosing a wife.

He hadn’t seen the ocean
since he was a baby.

The beach had become something he read in a book,
so when we arrived
he and I rolled up our pants to feel
the evening world
the concentrated everything
splashing up to say hello.

I looked up
to you taking pictures,
relentless beauty on the beach.

He didn’t know
this same ocean touched the shores
of the place where we were wed.

A garden-guarded gazebo
ocean breeze
scattered puffs of clouds
pervasive sunshine
tiny blue fluorescence

and the most perfect thing I’d ever seen.

There’s one picture of me
a ridiculously unguarded smile
seeing you

and I don’t remember the photographer
but what a wonderful job
capturing me capturing you

in the most reflexive
and reflective moment of my life.

I still can’t believe you’re my wife.

We were in a darkened barroom once
some man liked your look,
I looked around, lost and feeling;

something was scary,
some kind of armageddon

but nothing was wrong,
you were just glowing
you were just you
and everyone knew.

I’m not ashamed to say I’m jealous
of everyone. I see them
they see you,

half of them turn their heads to look
and the other half can’t fool me
as they try not to.

Some people say their wives change.
I don’t know what that means.

What does time have to do
with who someone is?

Love is like the ocean like the beach like what holds things together and moves them around and why the universe exists in concert instead of in parts— everyone knows what I mean when I talk about your heart

and when I tell them I love you they think they understand. I don’t know
maybe some of them do
they see you but I don’t think
they know you.

I have love for the inside of your pores and the texture of your mind, for the air that bends around you, the little cushion of nothingness that makes way for your reality

and how your eyes speak a language
I love learning.

I look in your eyes and I find myself

I see myself reflected
in the darkened threshold

and I imagine myself
steady and sure
I know who I am

guarded and ready
for whatever may come

“Where am I?” I deadpan.

“You’re here. You’re with me,”
you say

The voice of my wife
like the brightest light.

I don’t know why
but I want to bring you back
to wherever we’ve been.

It’s strange
because I don’t care where I am
or what I feel.

The truth is
nothing matters more
‍ ‍
than who I’m with.