The wrong thing to say.

by DS Maolalai

she tells me that her mother
has been saying I’ve trapped her.
I say tell her mother
not to worry about that –
that a marriage only has to be
forever if we want it to.
if in 10 years we’re unhappy
we can always get
divorced – especially
since we haven’t planned
on children. I tell her that I only
ever asked her if she’d marry me
because what I want
right now is to marry her
and so I will marry her
now. that birds
don’t have to stay, if they want,
in open cages. that I’d never
keep a starling
which kept looking
at the sky.