Of Marriage and Memory

We said we would be forever.
We said we would show each other the world
Filled with sacred/supple nights
And malleable/morning kisses.

We said our lives and our choices
Were surmountable
That children and careers
The acquired demands
The unanticipated compromises

Of two who love each other who are trying to do this thing right together
of two who love each other who are trying to do this thing right together…

Would not sour
The buttery taste of our dreams
Nor dilute our red sky at dawn
Quartz rose love
Fueled by desire, fueled by imagination, fueled by trust
That played a love supreme
As if composed by Coltrane.

We said our love would flourish
Because it must

Not because it had to
But that it must

In the way that blood and oxygen must
Conspire with organs to keep life
Present in the body.
It will be forever...
It will be forever...

From the performance text: “Seens From the Unexpectedness of Love.” BlacktinoQueerPerformance. Duke Univ. Press, 2016. (featured playwright)



Pamela Booker is 2024 NJ State Council on the Arts / Mid Atlantic Arts Prose Fellow for the manuscript Dill’s Mirrors and the Lizzies. An interdisciplinary writer, her publications are featured in various outlets, including Duke University Press. She’s in the Teaching-Faculty in Writing Studies / Theater Arts at Montclair State University.