"Prayer for Marriage" by Steve Scafidi

Of the poetry collection we read for class on 1/22, the poem "Prayer for Marriage" was the most beautiful to me and my favorite. It portrays a sense of night time that not many of our other pieces for the class so far have touched upon: one of serenity and calmness. Images like "When we are old one night and the moon / arcs over the house like an antique / China saucer and the teacup sun..." and "...before sleep--and that we kiss / standing in the kitchen not fighting / gravity..." evoke feelings of quiet and acceptance.

So often the night is associated with mystery and fright and it is not often that we encounter a feeling of acceptance. It is as if in this poem everything around the couple is accepted, whether in obscurity or not, and they know that even if there are scary things out there in the shadows, they have no desire to know what they are or go seek them out. They are content with each other in their kitchen and it's beautiful.

Something that is particularly striking to me is that, even though they are content within themselves, their "teapot wakes the neighbors". They, however, do not leave the house in order to affect the people outside of it. Therefore, they are still content in their closed off world within the night, and others wake up to hear what is outside. It seems as if these two people are the only two who have discovered the secret to living comfortably in the night time: do not be curious of the unknown!