On the Anniversary of Our Anniversary

I understand now how anniversaries pass,
how husbands forget. Wives

reminisce. When we said, “I do,” I didn’t
think about 15 years of living

in the same house. We settled into the rooms
like soil makes itself, deliberately, out of decay.

And I don’t mean to say our wedding day
was wrong. I mean to say we agree we never would have

married. We were raised this way, on TV 
on sitcoms. It’s not always funny. Jokes are hard

to write. Our anniversary turns over each year,
and we don’t remember any of them. Except the third

one, we were at the beach, and your entire family came
to the same restaurant. I guess that’s fine. You marry 

an entire clan, especially if you’re a woman. You move
and learn how to be a mother, even when you’re not

a mother. Your expectations are those of hers
and you are her, on your anniversary with hope

as cedar-clean as a hope chest. Ceramic rattles
in the cabinets. Plates get chipped. At dinner, 

you don’t mind the chipped plate if it’s clean.
But sometimes, on your anniversary, you think

about the other cabinets, the screen door
you don’t have. The flowers cut fresh

from a half-acre garden. You think a trip
into the woods is not too much to ask. You think

about things that are not too much to ask
on your anniversary. And you open the window

from your city apartment and look down.

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Sarah McCartt-Jackson has been published by Indiana Review, Journal of American Folklore, and The Maine Review. Her poetry books include: Stonelight, Calf Canyon, Vein of Stone, and Children Born on the Wrong Side of the River.