Arts: ?If Marriage Is a Duel at 10 Paces?

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Poem "If Marriage Is a Duel at 10 Paces" By Traci Brimhall Posted Tuesday, Feb 05, 2013, at 01:47 PM ET Click the arrow on the audio player to hear Traci Brimhall read this poem. You can also download the recording or subscribe to Slate's Poetry Podcast on iTunes. Let's count our steps with endearments. Honey. My love. Let's mix our gunpowder with rouge and foxglove seeds. If marriage is a war for independence, I'll find a feather for my cap and shoot you from your horse. Darling. If it's a hunt, salt and cure me. If it's a plague for two, my dear, let's quarantine ourselves in the cemetery wearing aprons and snakeskin belts. Let's disfigure each other with praise. My beautiful. My fugitive. If monogamy is a stakeout, Sweetheart, let's spy on the beekeeper who lactates honey. I'll pull stingers from your chest if you'll clean the blood from under my nails. If romance is a ballad, we are its authors and its victims and finished in four minutes. Beloved, if your desire is the passage you underlined in Song of Songs after our first kiss and erased on our honeymoon, then dark am I, yet lovely. Then you, my shepherd, my charioteer, turn and shoot. To continue reading, click here. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES Also In Slate How To Stop the Next Todd Akin A History of Misunderstanding There's No Such Thing as an Illegal Immigrant	Advertisement
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