The Language of the Couple

The tiniest anything in the sweet whole world
Is named new, just you two know bike is pony,
Boy is rug, van is pookatron, husband, the Pook.
An adorable adoring dictionary feeds you two.
You have your names for each other engraved
In your wedding rings, you have names for a chair
The bed, the way you lean back when he holds you.
You name the compost pile, you name the dogs
Over and over and over with new and ever sicklier
Goopier names. Oh bowser, oh cutie. Oh, pookadoo.

No more named things the sons protest, it’s just
Jake, stop, stop with The Bug, the june, junie june bug.
Everything doesn’t have to Be Named. They repeat.
Whatever. The less said the better.

But it does, everything has to be named, it’s the knitting
Love does to keep you snug, it’s the country you make
To live in, its language a language a two people fluency
The extra names gild a thing, a boy, a heart—the more names
The more loved, the more worth, the more you want it.
We summon the bicycle, the car, the garbage can, the boys.
By the love names, the wings Words have when they are
just yours and his, tongue of two of one of you.

Copyright © 2005 Heather Sellers All rights reserved
from Smartish Pace
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission