Week #6—Calisthenics

An anaphora exercise using Eliot Kahlil Wilson’s “Wedding Vows” as a model:

There is no one else to vouch for you at the bank, run your errands around town, fill up your car with gas, even wash it for you sometimes, or agree with you when you’re wrong.

There is no one else to make sure you get to your PCP for your annual physical, your dentist, too, and to sit beside your bed when you are sick and need some water to wet your dry and too often taciturn mouth.

There is no one else to keep your dinner warm and sit with you while you eat after you walk in at 9:00 at night, too brain-dead to ask me about my day or take out the garbage, but not too spent to watch JAG on Cable.

There is no one else, not even your mother, to kiss you like you hung the moon, or at least painted it on the ceiling, which might have been nice, and to tell you that you’re the nicest thing that ever happened to one who’s had a lot of good things in her life.

There is no one else to wash the sheets and make the bed so you can sprawl on it each night and snore the hours away as if you were Rip van Winkle, hogging the covers and running your toe-razors against my calves, and to wait until you’re in the mood.

There is no one else. . . is there?