.

Reshaping each other

We are differently shaped
with everyone we love,
sticking out here, receding
there, interlocking couples.

We grow roles as trees
extrude bark; perhaps
the real life is under
neath in the thin green sap.

I am the finder of things
in drawers; I make lists
and menus; I read maps.
You lift and haul and open.

I select; you reject.
You brood and I fuss.
You dream and I arrange.
You regret and I flee.

If we are yin and yang
it is in a crazy quilt
of push, pull and merge.
Strange as sphinxes,

common as goldfish, neither
alike nor different finally
but ratcheted together
in the gears of marriage.

– Marge Piercy, from What Are Big Girls Made Of?