These are the things
I can promise:

To never betray
What is sacred
By engaging pain
Through my anger
Which rarely forgets
You’re a saint,

Despite how fear
Often shows
From those past lives
Seeking to surface
Beneath raw hands
Always shaking
Before crying so long
After dark –

When her cheek
Is turned on its side,

Resting that head
Towards my pillow,

Feeling agony build
During sleeping
Knowing nightmares play
Missing sins

We forget
While staying awake
And finding each day
Still beginning
Instead of bad truths
Being swallowed
But thrown back up
If we rest.

Forgive how hurt
Reappears –

Remaining bold
Besides healing,

Swearing sometimes
Love means we suffer
Fighting constant odds
Fate has stacked.

Experience proves
Rain will fall,

Though marriage
Affirms looming sunlight,

Like commitment grows
Over decades
Quickly fading
Into death do us part.

Trading vows means
Trusting our skies
Zigzagging across
Without reason,

Following storms
Unspecific
But certain enough
Faced as one –

An oath
Two together must take,

Yet separately
Bearing real burdens –

Pledging failure
Strengthens endurance,

Merely answering
Prayers trailing clouds.

• J. Pigno