Moment In a Long Term Marriage

When things get difficult, remember to lie down and look up.

(Photo: Tina Lear)

The gears kept grinding with
irritation, popping every so often with
the sudden, harsher-than-intended
retort.

A really bad insult sat waiting
in her teeth, coiled like a cat wound tight
for the pounce, primed, impatient,
intent.

But the moment passed, pissed away
into a low-grade depression.
a defeat, a loneliness
surrendered.

Both of them tired, they lay down on their picnic blanket
and looked up. From there, a snapshot of them smiled
back down on their exhausted, striving
day.

Yearning branches reached for the sun, intertwining.
Each leaf, a day in their marriage, carbon monoxide to
oxygen, and beyond them, and above, the endless forgiving
blue sky.