I was asked to write a poem
      to read at your wedding.
I have been writing for weeks.
I don’t know what I’m trying to do
      but I know it’s something new.
Mostly the poem has become my life.
Mostly it’s a poem of longing
      for what the poem in me longs for.
Mostly it is a poem of the fight between desire
      and desire.
Mostly it is a poem of desire
      from the poem’s point of view.
Maybe the poem is a poem of love.
Though like most loves, the poem is a little
      exasperated.
The poem seems at the moment
      to be in the middle of a struggle.
The poem says the poem is struggling.
The poem says it wants more
      than this.
The poem wants to try and try again.
The poem wants you
      to write a new poem for it.
It hopes it will then write a new
      vow.
I don’t know why I made myself
      the center of this.
I don’t know why I seem to be
      the only person in the poem.
How’s this: I said I was going
      to love you forever.
I believed it.
I believed in it.
I didn’t expect the word forever
to seem anachronistic.
What do you mean,
      forever?
Who told you
      the wedding poem is for you?
Who told you the wedding poem
      has to mean anything?
The wedding poem is a poem
      about the poetry we dream.
I see you on the stage.
You are on the stage with me.
You found a poem you loved
      and someone reads us its vows.
We try to see the future.
We try to see the poems we are
even though we might not know them.
We try to see the future.
I try to see the future.
We try to see a poem about to happen.
This is a poem about the dream.
I try to see a poem about to happen.
This is a poem about to happen.
It has become a poem for you.
It has become a poem for me.
This is a poem about the poem that isn’t
      yet.
I struggle to see a poem
      about to happen.
I struggle to see the poem about to happen.

(originally published in Academy of the Heart and Mind, Spring 2023)