China Plates

Thirty-eight years is a long time,
so long that almost all the gifts
we got that day are gone.
The china's in the cabinet, and
I pull it out from time to time,
too nice for every day, the way
our static smiles in all the fading
wedding photos were a bit too
hopeful; blame it on the fact
that we were younger, didn't
realize the things we know
much better now.
A picture has survived, screen printed,
indestructible, whose givers likely
never guessed their name would crop up
in too many conversations even now,
and not for reasons they would like.
Well-made pots with copper bottoms
so the contents heat up evenly,
which might well be a metaphor for
marriage. Might be. Could be.
Somewhere, but not here. We
weren't well matched, no sameness
to our personalities or hobbies,
but we married, raised a family,
and stayed, stayed thirty-eight
long years, requiring an
acknowledgement of more than love,
of simple putting-up-with,
overlooking all the little ways I
can, and do, annoy or he will disappoint,
don't even get me started on the
big stuff. It's enough that on that
day, we said "I do" and mostly did,
some failures here and there on both
our parts, the triumphs of four children,
and their three, the numbers going up
as wedding gifts get broken,
thrown away, donated to good causes
but tonight, I think, I'll pull the
wedding china out and use it one more time.
It isn't every day you celebrate
a marriage with such strange beginnings
or as many ups and downs,
or (these days) double-digit age,
three decades plus and nearing four,
and as we gray, we know the china will
outlast us, as it should. And one day
someone will be sitting at their dinner,
think to ask whose plates these were,
and never really understand the story
of the boy and girl and how they came
to be a couple, then a family.

No one ever really does.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014