Double Arch

by Bruce Willard

How typical of me to suggest a wedding
reception on the Green River,
deep in the canyonlands of Utah,
that big, rolling, chocolate river in May
so opaque you couldn’t see 6 inches
through its body to the rock of which it’s made.

At the ceremony under Double Arch
a chipmunk ran across your sneakers.
The mayor who conducted our small recital
left us scrambling for parts, drowning
in a murky stream of words.
Somewhere in the desert our cake melted.

It was the beginning of your third trimester
and you floated in an innertube between rafts,
Bob with his floating cask of tequila,
our kids by prior marriages wide-eyed,
blindsided by irreverence.
Everything looked like a penis to Julio.

We laughed 5 straight days,
and when we stopped, we scrubbed the dirt
from our skin and carried the residue
in our shoes and bags for generations
to re-discover. I wanted its durability,

how it transported what was worn, scraped away, lost
to someplace new. I think it was that dirt
that traveled all the way from the Great Salt Lake
that kept us together. That stuck
between the plastic sleeves of photos
and held together our album of years.

How I’ve come to love that grit. The primordial
feeling of place on the move.
That attaches to everything living
and dead. That carries what’s loose,
mixed and messy downstream
to what it becomes.