What Marriage Is

This morning you stood at the mirror and cursed your hair with a creativity I have always admired. You are fifty now, you say, as if I hadn't noticed, as if the years had not been happening to both of us at the same generous speed. I could tell you about beauty— how yours has not diminished but migrated: from the obvious places to the corners of your eyes when you laugh, to the patience in your hands when they unknot the dog's leash or our daughter's worry. But you don't want a poem. You want the coffee made before your feet hit the floor. You want the car warm on January mornings. You want someone to say your hair looks fine and mean it. This is what marriage is: not the saying of extraordinary things but the extraordinary frequency with which we keep saying the ordinary ones— and the ordinary ones keep being enough.