We didn't have one, unless you count Paris,
20 years later, after we'd almost given up on the idea.
We'd imagined one, long nights beneath
a warm celestial2 sky; him growing his beard,
me in a silk turquoise3 robe, floating, billowing,
on a deserted4 beach foraging5 for whole sand dollars,
jelly fish washed up on the shore, their glittering insides
visible, still pulsing through flesh made of glass,
but it never happened. We had to work through
our vacations, refinance the house, find someone
to cut down the cedar6 that threatened to bury us
with each storm. We wanted to make up
for the wedding, or lack of one, the granite
courthouse steps, the small room with a desk,
the flimsy document stamped with a cheap gold seal.
Even then we meant to have a party on the deck,
cheese and crackers7, fruit plates, sparkling
grape cider in plastic cups, our friends on the lawn
calling you the Big Kahuna, me Mrs. Dynamite,
me calling you my Sweet Dragon, you calling me
your little Red Corvette. Instead, time found a way
to demand each minute, until one night,
after you'd gotten a small windfall in the mail,
you turned to me and said, I'm going to take you to Paris,
me in my ratty robe and floppy8 slippers9, you
in your flannel10 pj bottoms and black wife beater,
muting the clicker when I said "What?"
and saying it again. Then we were there,
in our 60s, standing11 below the dire12 Eiffel Tower,
its 81 stories of staircases we couldn't possibly climb,
its 73 thousand tons of puddled iron, you
taking my picture for posterity13, me
kissing you beneath the pathway of arched trees,
our voices echoing against the six million skulls
embedded inside the stone catacombs, me
saying, I guess you weren't kidding, you
taking my hand in the rain.