An Analysis Of Modern Marriage

The two-fold goal of marriage; first, to make two one; second, to make two three. How conveniently Nature provided the same mechanism for both goals. Sometimes what we see is solid substantial flesh and bone. Other times, it is only skin deep. How is it that touch provides no truer test than the eyes roaming, guessing? How unevenly Time is split between Desire and Performance. I can desire for hours and feed my Desire continuously by looking and then recreating it all in my mind. For some flesh is merely a curtain they push aside to reveal the gemstone life of the Interior: and in that airless space resides the soul, inviolate, immortal, with no lasting shape but shaping other things. For others the soul resides in no place: it is a vapor, floating at will in measureless space. It chooses to wait patiently in the flesh. They say, when flesh dissolves, soul ascends... We can perform for moments, for a moment we are united. The momentary is all of this rapture we are given. But our hearts, those finely tuned instruments of feelings, imbue memory with lasting appreciation. The philosopher tells us we both have and are our bodies. I can readily see that's true: I can point out parts and organs the way a car salesman points to features in a new model car for sale. And we are our bodies: the truth of that I can see when I look into your green eyes, their emerald wonder, and know they are the openings through which Intimacy crosses the borders of our selves, again and again. What is Intimacy but a common treasure we both acknowledge as priceless? Intimacy is a spiritual sight by which I see depth of truth in you and you in me. It is two hearts fused, two minds united, two bodies one. What is divorce? The cancellation of every line of this poem. The breaking of every promise carried by its words over time. The denial of its lyrical delight, the silencing of its life long conversation. ..... ..... ..... ..... I move and speak more cautiously now, because I carry inside, where soul fills the space of body, the corpses of both of us. They were fused into one body for burial, but there are really two, which never were truly one. You never told me our marriage was a failure from its very beginning. This I never knew.