Most Like an Arch This Marriage
by John Ciardi

Most like an arch – an entrance which upholds
and shores the stone-crush up the air like lace.
Mass made idea, and idea held in place.
A lock of time. Inside half-heaven unfolds.

Most like an arch – two weaknesses that lean
into a strength. Two fallings become firm.
Two joined abeyances become a term
naming the fact that teaches fact to mean.

Not quite that? Not much less. World as it is,
what’s strong and separate falters. All I do
at piling stone on stone apart from you
is roofless around nothing. Till we kiss

I am no more than upright and unset.
It is by falling in and in we make
the all-bearing point, for one another’s sake,
in faultless falling, raised by our own weight.