…to take, hold, and keep, someone to look after, someone to dote on, someone from whom to accept love gifts, someone with whom to embark upon unknowable adventures and with whom to come back home laden with trophies, someone to wrap your arms around, someone to follow around the house, around town, around the world, someone with whom to stay up late, someone for whom to dress up, someone who makes you stop caring what anyone else thinks, someone to make you change your mind about everything, someone to never doubt, never distrust, never deceive, always desire, with whom to look forward to being old, with whom to look back on being young, to have so many good days to come, someone to make you not just turn the TV off; throw it away, bolt the door, burn some candles, have a wee dram, turn the sound system up so loud you can’t even hear the neighbors shouting, kill the lights, close the blinds, and then love this person for the rest of your life?
[Nora: I have.]
And who is that person?
[It’s Stephen!]
Stephen, have you found someone…
…about whom to write poetry, to whom to address sonnets, sestinas, villanelles, and pantoums, for whom to construct vast and manifold pieces of grammar, someone for whom to light fires, throw bricks, and break rules, someone around whose existence you will shape your ideals; you can rationalize them later, someone with whom to endure the harshness of life, the distress of humanity, the extremities of existence, with whom to relish the largess of the cosmos and the munificence of having a life to live, someone who will be your first thought every morning and your last thought on the last day of your life, someone who you never need to photograph because every image of her will be in your brain forever, someone who is referred to you by everything else on the planet, with every extended index finger and every arrow pointing the way back to her, someone to defend and cherish and love for the rest of your life?
[Stephen: I have.]
And who is that person?
[It’s Nora!]
