Dos-à-dos 

                        "Love surprises us.
                         It ends."
                                            ~ Eliza Griswold


Accompany, as in provide musical support. Also walk with,
        be with; hand to hold. Your designated person in rooms

claustrophobic with accusation, or  just plain overwhelm. Not
       dependency, more like mutualism. Woolly bats and pitcher plants,

endosymbiotic algae;  pistol shrimp and goby, fig wasp and 
       fig. We scratched out "obey," exchanging vows. Instead,

gave our word: through sickness, health, mortgages, and sometimes
       helium balloons, cake. Then and now, hard to think about that afterlife

in which none of us remain, or only one of us survives the other.
       Jumpy times. You're reminded: sink then shoot up from the bottom;

knife through the surface, blubbering for air, though the world's
       long arm gathers everything back in after reeling you out. 

Maybe it's easy to forget, because there are magical things like flying
       noodles in the world; finger limes that burst open with citrus caviar,

octopodes dreaming in multicolor within the depths. Life laps and ebbs,  
       punctuated at intervals with the effort of striving then stopping,

quieting to a low-key but ever present ripple in the leaves. Do the gods  
       respond? You're careful to make your meaning clear— Not begging for 

special favor, just a decent chance to make good with what you got, time to
       tick off a few more boxes. You're a small speck in the universe. Still, to be

useful in some ways, but not begrudged a go, before the end, at those 
       vaults of sweetness where everyone else is tossing beach balls,  

wading in the kiddy pool, drinking herbal infusions out of mason jars. 
       Xysts lined with eucalyptus and pine, no surveillance drones, where
 
you could walk together. Not coming or going; tracing zig-
      zag threads as if just meandering were essential, because it is.