I Now Pronounce You

By Caroline Earleywine

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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.

Caroline Earleywine is a poet and educator who taught high school English in Central Arkansas for ten years. She earned her MFA from Queens University in Charlotte, and Sibling Rivalry Press published her chapbook, Lesbian Fashion Struggles, in 2020. She is a Jack McCarthy Book Prize winner and her debut full-length collection, I Now Pronounce You, will be out with Write Bloody Publishing in April 2024. She lives in Little Rock with her wife and two dogs. You can keep up with her work at carolineearleywine.com.

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