Erica Minton

THE FIT
For Johanna and Paul on their wedding day

Some things want desperately to be.
There are locks that struggle to unfasten,
doors that fuss and shuffle on their hinges,
objects brimming over with potential energy
that yearn to roll or churn or careen.
Time tries to be any time but this one—
five minutes ago, ten years from now,
an instant that never truly happened
or an old moment you just barely remember.

And there are things that want to be together.
This transcends magnetism, fields of nature
jerking and twisting until balances strike.
This pull is something higher, primal, hair-raising.
It is how birds find their nests again.
It is how you know a voice you haven’t heard
in eight years, as if your ear was waiting for it.
It is how you find your own mouth in the dark,
or how smoke makes its way to the ceiling.

Physics often works in our favor:
nudging things closer and buffeting them around
until they stick, or click, or mix, or meld.
Science catalyzes, then moves out of the way.
We are already antsy to snap into place,
tumbling roughly inside ourselves until we do.
The rest is easier: our natures finally mollified,
the din in our souls trailing off like a distant bell.
The rest is a life together, frantic with new purpose.