Wedding Prayer

I will make myself a husband,

and rest my head

on the lion’s tongue.

With this fence I thee wed

the deer tail twitching in her bed

of blood-stained leaves.

Let this make us safe

to kiss and wake in the bright light

of science. Let us place too much

stock in our own resilience.

Let us experiment. Let us embrace

and make pets of our differences.

Dear orcas who can see all the way

inside our guts. Dear mice who kill snakes

too cold to fight. No one is safe

in nature. Let us live there together

distracted as feral bees untethered

from their keeper. Our work is better

when we’re kept. Let us be needy

and also full. A crown of kinglets

ringing the suet. Let us forget.