by Caroline Earleywine

I now pronounce you your own. Give you back
your names, put down those titles: Mother, Father,

Wife, Husband. I pronounce you whole. Better
apart, but still better for once having found each

other. I pronounce you human. Both the stove
and the hand that touches it, if only to learn

what burns. I pronounce your every scar
well earned, roads on a worn map you used

to find your way home. I pronounce you home
and road. Minute and hour hand, together

briefly, moving forward. I pronounce you
the golden leaf and its inevitable

fall. I pronounce you deserving of space
to change, the hydrangea moved

from its pot into earth, roots stretched out
like an unclenched fist. I pronounce you worthy

of looking back with gentle eyes. Both the one
who held me in the backseat, my bleeding

knee in your lap, and the steady hand that drove
us to the hospital. I pronounce you both free

and forever bound, your four children stitched
between you like the binding of a book sewed

together by hand. I pronounce you the pages
and the cover that encases them.

Both the story I know
and the one you wrote without me.

______________________________________________________________________

by Caroline Earleywine

Formalwear is toughest—
so suit or dress, so senior prom,
binary bursting

from every corsage
and boutonniere.
The day before a wedding

my wife and I tear through
our closets, model outfits
for each other in hopes

we’ll find something
that doesn’t feel like a costume,
but like our own skin.

We try on words: butch,
femme, androgynous, stud.
But language always fails.

The children we won’t birth
line up on the shelf like shoes,
the men we won’t love

hang limp
on their hangers
in the back.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________