Brad Johnson     Delray Beach        (Peter Schmidt)
Married Saturday Mornings

I don’t want to let you out of bed this Saturday morning.
While a storm lifts the curtains of the open windows
and whiffs of rain sweep through the sliding glass door,
I don’t want to roll over, don’t want you to sit up,
don’t want the telephone to ring or you to dial
because then I will have lost you to your friend
in Happy Valley who’s getting married to a Methodist
archeologist from Missouri, or to your other friend
who’s getting married outside of New Haven one 
week from yesterday and the dresses don’t 
fit. The best man’s threatening to not show. The last 
wedding we attended, in Michigan two weeks ago,
was my Irish-Scottish friend’s and I wore a kilt and long 
wool stockings and no underwear and a little satchel
around my waist where I kept a flask filled 
with whiskey. We’ve been married one month
and I don’t want to let you out of bed this Saturday 
morning. I’ve heard if you put a marble in a jar
for every time you have sex during the first year
of marriage and remove one marble for each
time you have sex anytime after, you’ll never empty
the jar. I want to fill that jar and empty that jar, construct
new jars, shape marble sculptures, fashion monuments, 
employ museum curators, assemble gardens. 

Originally published in New Zoo Poetry Review in 2006.
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