Marriage

This is the poem that answers
the question "What happens when an adult male
who has been unmarried since childhood
suddenly has his wife restored?"
She just walks in the door one day
and says, "Honey, guess what, I'm home!"
He, looking up quizzically yet with good humor
over the top of his newspaper, says,
"Well, I never . . . ," but
she interrupts with a smile, saying
"You'll never guess where I've been!"
He allows that that is true but holds
his tongue. She, extracting a hairpin, takes
her time explaining. And then, when she's
done, things go on pretty much as one
might expect. She finds everything
out of order and begins to rearrange, and he
wonders who it is she so reminds him of.

--HJ

in Guide to the Tokyo Subway
[Maplewood, New Jersey: Hamilton Stone Editions, 2006]

--on the occasion this day, Sept. 10, of my 71st and our 17th