A Marriage

A Marriage

by Barry Spacks

Clear nowof our long struggle

I can hear your voice,

its strength

the sweet coldnessof river water.
And I can see you

as in the photograph

with your father and sister,

tall pretty girl,

pigtailed and freckled,
led, misled,until you doubted

your beauty, body,

that you were one among us,

a person, like any other.
And, given distance,

I think of you

becoming smaller,

but cheerful, the way

the old are
with short white hair

and an easiness

you'd never know before,

and me, incredibly,not there.

"A Marriage" by Barry Spacks, from Spacks Street: New and Selected Poems. © The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)