Arrangements

Anton, 

The next time they tease you about your proposal, tell
them that, in two hundred years, your music
still plays. 

Tell them that then – that now – people arrange to marry online
through something called Internet, which is like 
an electric web, 

though more like a mirror and a peephole combined. Imagine, 
Anton, my Puerto Rican friend met her Welsh 
husband online. They have two tall kids 

and live in San Juan. And what’s certainty in love, anyway? 
You think you’ve got someone mapped, then – bam! – 
a new obsession arrives. 

For years, you’ve walked their streets, barely glimpsed odd 
signs that, like the dark wires of unlit public holiday lights, 
suddenly flash too bright. 

Anton, even you rearranged your symphonies. It’s hard, isn’t it, 
to go back? Always a chord we decide we don’t like. Always 
a movement to rewrite.

¿Te salió bueno? a Mexican friend once asked. I laughed, 
then paused: Yes, I’m pretty sure 
he turned out alright.