It Is Better to Marry than to Burn

All That We Have:

It's on ordinary days, isn't it,
    when they happen,
those silent slippages, 

a man mowing the lawn, a woman
    reading a magazine,
each thinking it can't go on like this, 

then the raking, the turning
    of a page.
The art of letting pass 

what must not be spoken, the art
    of tirade, explosion,
are the marital arts, and we, 

their poor practitioners, are never
    more than apprentices.
At night in bed the day visits us, 

happily or otherwise. In the morning
    the words good morning
have a history of tones; pray to say them 

evenly. It's so easy, those moments
    when affection is what
the hand and voice naturally coordinate. 

But it's that little invisible cloud
    in the livingroom,
floating like boredom, it's the odor 

of disappointment mixing with
    kitchen smells,
which ask of us all that we have. 

The man coming in now
    to the woman.
The woman going out to the man. 

Stephen Dunn.