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On the Night of a Friend's Wedding
Elizabeth Robinson


Are you surprised that I address you now, less alone,
and years later? I do rate
myself as doubly transplanted, then and today. Wait
until you find out how I came to you, from a sod house sown
with doors. Vows uttered and done
from a frontier, in every instance. Eight
years later I huddle in other promises. I might prate
about a new border, oceanic, a true one

which commands all attention. Tonight
can we imagine jumping off recklessly, into the sea thatŐs come
almost to our feet. All the while, keep in mind the plains, and me—
so adrift without my coasts. I lack you, or not "you," but some sight
of our old selves, playing hooky, skimming foam
off the tide. ThatŐs how we should blend environs and vows now, utterly.


Return to Issue Three.