Proposal

In the quiet garden, as the sky folded in yellow
pleats on the dark, he locked arms about her,
and asked a question. The hollow
air was still.
His grip, his will hurt her.
It was a moment, you might say
an occasion. Had it been day,
Had a wind stirred the dry skeletons of fallen puriri leaves—
Sometimes you just follow, sometimes you just pay
the asked price, welcome what arrives.
Here is the cup, now swallow.
Girls become wives, and it was evening, and mellow.