in truth, we had married that first night

I did not stand at the altar, I stood 

at the foot of the chancel steps, with my beloved, 

and the minister stood on the top step 

holding the open Bible. The church 

was wood, painted ivory inside, no people—God's 

stable perfectly cleaned. It was night, 

spring, outside, a moat of mud, 

and inside, from the rafters, flies 

fell onto the open Bible, and the minister 

tilted it and brushed them off. We stood 

beside each other, crying slightly 

with fear and awe. In truth, we had married 

that first night, in bed, we had been 

married by our bodies, but now we stood 

in history—what our bodies had said, 

mouth to mouth, we now said publicly, 

gathered together, death. We stood 

holding each other by the hand, yet I also 

stood as if alone, for a moment, 

just before the vow, though taken 

years before, took. It was a vow 

of the present and the future, and yet I felt it 

to have some touch on the distant past 

or the distant past on it, I felt 

the silent, dry, crying ghost of my 

parents' marriage there, somewhere 

in the bright space—perhaps one of the 

plummeting flies, bouncing slightly 

as it hit forsaking all others, then brushed 

away. I felt as if I had come 

to claim a promise—the sweetness I'd inferred 

from their sourness; and at the same time that 

I had
come, congenitally unworthy, to beg. 

And yet, I had been working toward this love 

all my life. And then it was time 

to speak—he was offering me, no matter 

what, his life. That is all I had to 

do, there, to accept that gift 

I had longed for—to say I had accepted it, 

as if being asked if I breathe. Do I take? 

I do. I take as he takes—we have been 

practicing this. Do you bear this pleasure? I do.

   listen to it here

[Sharon Olds {1942- } 'The Wedding Vow', from Into the Garden]