The Long Marriage, by Annaliese Jakimides

Untitled Clay Sculpture, by Leslie Bowman (USA) 2022. Courtesy of the artist.

The Long Marriage 
 
I wonder some days whether you’re planning a getaway, and in those moments, what rises is, you know, the way we’ve looked beyond the dark—shadow and shot—to uncover the latitude of instigation or manipulation or immolation that combusted us. The way it saved us—in the clatter of dirty dishes, the musty undershirts, the chopped Bermuda onions when you wanted plain yellow. 
 
Well, that’s what I’m talking about. 
 
Disappointment gnaws at the fringes until it leaks open a wound, and, damn, honey, we both know it’s a short life. We’ve balanced so many times over so many years, uncertain that we could make one more step in the same direction, and yet the breath of possibility we’d known from the moment we met would rise again. The ladder rungs eased us forward, greasy with desire. 
 
Come on now, jump on my back, take the ride. In this dark kettle of time, you are still my everything: silk against my knees, spring battuto on my tongue, endless rivers of untainted water, light and light, more light, brilliant blinding light.

Annaliese Jakimides

Annaliese Jakimides is a writer and mixed media artist who grew up in inner-city Boston and raised a family on 40+ acres on a dirt road in northern Maine, growing almost all their food and pumping water by hand. She currently lives in an apartment in a small city next to a library. In addition to working with inner-city environmental justice organizations and international arts groups, she has developed humanities programs for schools and discussed life through the lens of children’s literature in a variety of settings including prisons, community centers, and libraries. Cited in national competitions, her poetry and prose have been included in many journals and anthologies, including Utne and GQ, and broadcast on Maine Public and NPR. Her most recent publication is in the anthology Breaking Bread (Beacon Press, 2022). annaliesejakimides.com