untitled

Dearly beloved, these words are not mine,
I am wrapped in a kind of
bliss utterly unlike me.

"Dearly beloved,"
I try to say, over and over again,
my words, oh my words, not wanting to form
correctly in my mouth.
They are in my heart,
not my head.

I'm the boy who's stuttered all through high school,
the freckled-faced, gangly
boy with stick-straight
legs and thick glasses, the boy who loved
science and comics and too much sugar.
Now here I am

saying "Beloved,"
as if the cat had caught my tongue,
and I'm trying to get it back.
"Beloved," I whisper one more time,
and the words curve just right.