marry me

Marry me, she said to him and he
did, without
thinking much about it, odd as that
may sound for
something so delicate, yet life-changing, because
he figured, wrongly so, it turned out,
that he could
make
just about anything work, because, well,
couldn’t he? And if not just him, couldn’t they? And she’d talked
a good game, like he, so what was
the risk? She would later say she was
“desperate” to get married, not so’s she’d told it
to him, of course, but would even that have made
a difference? He thinks not.
He figured to be her rescuer. It was, he thinks, now,
his destiny, no matter how ill-fated.
She turned out
to be
his destroyer, if she
could’ve been, lately, lastly.
Holy matrimony, it wasn’t.
Wholly foolish?
Perhaps. But who knew that, then,
or at least was willing to
say
it?