Let’s be honest: what each of us wants

is to never get eaten by zombies,

and the shotgun-shaped truth of the matter

is we’re less likely to be ravaged

by the ravenous appetites of the dead

if someone just loves us. We each need

a partner posted on the roof, someone

with a crossbow watching high cornfields

for signs of movement. There needs to be

someone willing to brave the basement

during the power outage, someone to descend

the midnight staircase to repair the generator.

We need a reserve supply of bandages,

fragmentation grenades, and flamethrowers

just in case the grid goes down. I’m afraid

of dying alone and I imagine I’m not alone

in that fear. Those of us who’ve known

sorrow know the world is populated by those

who will respond to our outstretched arms

by eating our outstretched arms. The god-honest

miracle we celebrate today, is these gentle

and soon-to-be-betrothed friends of ours

have found in each other, a companion

willing to declare in public: I promise

to never eat your extremities, kidneys,

or brains, and furthermore, I vow

to protect you from those who would.

We call this commitment “marriage,”

and there is no greater honor than to say:

even when humanity withers around us,

I will guard the humanity that stirs—restless

and delicate, like a fawn in a field of trillium—

in you. If the lights of the city go dark,

if the highways fall silent, if every radio fills

with static, if you are surrounded

by a flesh-eating foulness and running low on ammo,

I will love you like an unmarked helicopter

flying in from the horizon. I will hover

over you, and with my machine gunners

struggling to hold the danger back,

I will lower the rope ladder to meet you.