Forty-three years

My husband Bob and I are married forty-three years today. I'd say it is a miracle considering all the nay sayers at the time we said, "I do." My parents were openly hostile to our getting married since my husband was not our same religion. Don't I look a little up tight at the scene - a judges chamber?

Since we had both been married before, we had a tiny wedding - about ten witnesses at the ceremony and for dinner at a local restaurant afterward. But that didn't matter to us. We were confident about what we were doing. And that has never changed even though we experienced the greatest loss any mother and father can have - the death of a child.

Yet now we still can laugh out loud at all those folks who predicted our marriage would never last. 

I wrote the following poem after forty years. It's included in my memoir, Leaving the Hall Light On. 

Forty Years (now forty-three)

He folds her in his arms

and looks down at her

with his deep blue eyes

and a small, closed-mouth smile

that shows just the hint of dimples

in his ruddy cheeks—

the way he looked

as he stood at her apartment door

on Mentone Avenue

that first night,

his hair

straw-blond, cut short,

stuck straight up,

his beige raincoat

damp from the March drizzle,

carrying a bottle of champagne

under his arm.

He remembers how

after drinking champagne

after dancing so slow they hardly moved,

after she invited him

into her bed,

they were up all night

exploring, tasting as they got to know

and feel every inch of each other,

stroking faces, necks, thighs, feet,

kissing, mouths open,

almost swallowing each other,

coupling, resting,

one on top, then the other,

spooned, joined

over and over again

until dawn and hunger

drove them out into the rain

to find a place to eat.

And though he admits nothing,

no nothing,

has ever come close

to that first night,

his memory of it

and the girl standing in the doorway,

with short dark hair,

a tight-fitting yellow dress,

black patent-leather stiletto pumps,

keep them joined together

now.