RESPECT

Marriage Marri age Marrinage Marinade Someone’s goose is being cooked.

To honor and obey, also to love, don’t forget that. There’s a contract and a license, thus there will be lawyers. Apparently, God favored them as the deity was so fond of rules. Lots, like mice in the cupboards. The state is in this with you. You’re just a half; you’ll fall over without the other. So much for all those degrees. The word acquiring appears in a sacred text. There is the matter of commanded by God who is directly involved urging fertility (maybe a little crowded in the marital bed).

Commitment Commi-t-ment Commies ment What does Karl say in his old-fashioned way?

Workers arise! In one word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your property. Precisely so; that is just what we intend. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life and his relations with his kind. Then the world will be for the common people, and the sounds of happiness will reach the deepest springs. Ah! Come! People of every land, how can you not be roused?

Congratulations! On your plan to slice the wedding’s cake. In the kitchen, happiness, unhappiness, and necessity with its invention are always there as hand-me-down pots. That’s where the glasses are. They’ll need a splash or two or three for a toast or a boast or because the bloody day is over. Friends pile up there too, even when you’re ready for bed. There’s always an ice cream carton in the freezer and a drawer full of spoons. Sunlight in the morning with coffee. It’s there to warm the heart, which can feel a chill now and again. Talk, tasty as a green chili croissant with jam, keep handy.

Potholes? Potholes are of different sizes. Breath, bathroom habits, being interrupted in company, secrets of the I forgot to tell you variety, a habit of disagreeing, or going, “Uh huh,” while thinking of ordering those slick running shoes. Be ready to smooth frustration with a hug and sincere on your resting face. Thump! “What’s with the lingering gaze on Betty Lou, the wit with tits.” Or thump! “So, everything Tom, Tommy the fit twit at the party said, was hilarious.” No, the bone-jarring jolt that could wreck the undercarriage is respect, and the potholes called disrespect. It takes a lot to go from laughter, gossip, fun outside and behind the door, sharing the inner truth of you to words that pierce in a meteor shower, comes distrust, and when a wheel collapses, disgust. Then you’re on the emotional tilt-a-whirl, pressed into the spinning seat so you can’t move in a panic for it to stop. When the damage is grim, see if Ace’s Therapy Repair Shop can mend what’s bent and ease the pressure, so you start by opening your eyes. Love’s ticket to the carnival teaches how to stand on shaky legs. Watch where you drive.

You might on a summer night take a ride. The two of you, together with the warm breezes coming in the windows, some cold green grapes in a bowl between you. The crunch, a burst of juice, flavoring your progress. A promenade on wheels: there a couple dressed to fashion in hailing distance of fitting into their prom clothes, health driven, given their deep respect for the river Styx; and now, a fellow bursting with life coming from every part ready to ignite making him a rollicking fireball and we like moths flutter in his wake; and there a couple moving along with children bouncing around them, grabbing their hands to be lifted up and down and up and down, then released to whirl around in a circle, then fasten themselves to a leg to be dragged then released while serenely unbothered so to carry on a discussion about what color to repaint the living room and dropping the hammer on screen time; Sitting on a bench an older couple talks animatedly, not to each other, but to a child a thousand miles away sitting in a cafe, who called to check on the float to old boats. What’s to come is not so mum tiddly bum.

Power glide engaged, the houses thin, the countryside opens up, and the car points toward the lake. Their playlist kicks in, accompanying their path to a naked swim at a tree-covered inlet, where the moon looks through scudding, ragged streamers riding the wind. Here’s the song, you know it, by Etta James. At last / My love has come along / My lonely days are over / And life is like a song / Oh, yeah, yeah / At last / The skies above are blue / My heart was wrapped up in clover / The night I looked at you. Splash.