American Life in Poetry: “This Stranger, My Husband” by Freya Manfred

It’s said that each of us undergoes gradual change and that every seven years we are essentially a new person. Here’s a poem by Freya Manfred, who lives in Stillwater, Minnesota, about the changes in a long marriage. Her most recent book is “Speak, Mother,” published by Red Dragonfly Press.

This Stranger, My Husband

The older we get the stranger my husband becomes,

and the less certain I am that I know him.

We used to lie eye to eye, breathing together

in the immensity of each moment.

Lithe and starry-eyed, we could leap fences

even with babies on our backs.

His eyes still dream off

toward something in the distance I can’t see;

but now he gazes more zealously,

and leaps into battle with a more certain voice

over politics, religion, or art,

and some old friends won’t come to dinner.

The molecules of our bodies spiral off into the stars

on winds of change and chance,

as we welcome the unknown, the incalculable,

the spirit and heart of everything we named and knew so well—

and never truly named, or knew,

but only loved, at last.

Poem copyright ©2015 by Freya Manfred from “Speak, Mother” (Red Dragonfly Press, 2015), and reprinted by permission by the author and publisher. American Life in Poetry is supported by the Poetry Foundation and the English department at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. We do not accept unsolicited submissions.