a marriage vow

look
__________across the bridge
where
__________once, two lovers
__________jumped,
hand in hand
for the sheer and simple joy of it.

the water was not deep.
daylight
__________had snuck up on them:
night
__________was for people
bent
__________on secrecy;
their mission
was celebration.

he jumped
__________and she fell;
unevenly
__________they went,
__________billiard balls,
and bowling pins,

dancing
__________in the air
one after
the other
__________till the whoop
__________and splash
rent
__________the water
__________like so many
unsent letters,
ready to accept a
simple correspondence.
love makes it easy

to risk drowning. for
two moments,
__________maybe three,
the people
who have gathered here today
watch and wait,
and then
__________two heads
emerge, sodden.
their mouths know only
the shape of laughter.

Disha Trivedi is a scientist-in-training. She currently divides her time between Scotland, New Zealand, and her native California. She has been previously published in The Women’s Issue, an anthology curated by The Harvard Advocate.