(two months and twelve days after legal marriage)

Love of my life,
how redundant it felt
to make vows of marriage
having traveled
a thirty-one year road.

Did we not take vows the night we
set out on this journey:
anointed by coffee at Perkins
sanctified on a sofabed alter?

Neither of us anticipated then
that a day would come
when force of law would bind us.
But court rulings do not define the heart.

On our thirty-first anniversary of love,
I undertake this vow:

No “I do” shall supersede
our queer covenant:

to be friends and lovers first
and married second

to value spiritual growth
above conventional relationship
and create “family”
intentionally

to dance across the lines
of social respectability
and seek justice
promiscuously

to celebrate sexuality
spiritually
and sex
playfully

to risk adventure
flagrantly
and seek joy
recklessly

So that whatever life may throw in our path,
our world may be renewed
just by our traveling
together.