At Last, Celeste Nunn (September 2026)

At Last

You’re a chunk of clay, and I’m
a bit of bone, grown
by a God who could not
leave well enough alone.
 
And darling, look at what we’ve
made, in an earth barely subdued:
three of our kind, flesh of our flesh,
all pink and earthen-hued.
 
Now a knowledge great and
terrible lingers overhead:
the soft spectre of Death
above our marriage bed.
 
And I wish I could remember
exactly what He said:
work and pain, fruit and grain,
heels and serpents’ heads.
 
At any rate, I’ll kiss you
beneath your cloak of figs
(a woman cannot help but sow
the rows her husband digs).
 
Now in our little garden
where our sin-struck children play,
where you toil and I labor
to keep that Death at bay,
 
past the flaming sword, where you
put your plow to rest,
pluck with me the thorns
we’ve spat into each other’s flesh.
 
At night we’ll count the spaces
between your blessed ribs
(a woman cannot help but fill
the ditch her husband digs),
 
and if you should find a gap
you feel, but cannot see,
at last, my love—at last!—don’t fret;
the missing bone is me.