Lines on Marriage

You’re not dewy with

sleep in the next room,

or impossibly

distant. You’re not here.

“Bovary bores me,

Bovary irritates

me, the vulgarity

of the subject gives

me bouts of nausea.”

You might be jogging

or buying groceries.

I don’t know where you

are. It’s not midnight

or high noon or dawn.

It’s about three, I

think, the hour Sartre

said is always too

early or too late

for whatever it

is you want to do.

Flaubert hates his

characters not because

of what they do or

who they are but

because they don’t do

anything and are

no one. Which is to

say they’re like us.

You might be on the

moon or puking gin

at a truck stop but

likely not. Emma

buys a map of Paris

to coordinate

her ennui. We live

in a city, not

on a map. Marriage

can’t be a love story

or a hate story

because it’s not a

story. “Madame Bovary,

c’est moi,” unlike

“L’État, c’est moi,” is

a diagnosis, not

a boast, and the disease

is pettiness and

mediocrity, which is

to say life itself,

and as long as you

are with me I wish

never to be cured.

Always too early or

too late, but always.