The problems with legalizing love
multiply when humans are involved,
now invoking powers from above
to deal with times when push comes to shove
and reveal what has not been resolved.
Although it does not work all the time,
the powers above have ordained two
people as eligible to climb
the altar and share for a lifetime
a love that will constantly renew.
The laws recognizing love so sweet
have also been forced to codify
relationships they wish to delete,
admitting to amorous defeat,
creating a need to modify
arrangements put in place to endure
troubling times, unexpected hardship,
and anything that sullies the pu-
ri-ty couples had hoped to ensure
without worrying that it would slip
away, with bank accounts and the kids
all left dangling precariously,
in danger of landing on the skids,
and when all is said and done forbids
all chance of hope. Now seriously,
these complications have not deterred
brave lovers from adding even more
people to this stew already stirred
into a mix that now seems absurd:
not just two, but three or even four
husbands and wives, partners or spouses,
whatever terms they choose, as lovers
living together in their houses,
listening when one of them grouses
and the situation then hovers
on the brink of a catastrophe
with five, six, or even a dozen
creating a new theosophy
(the human heart in hypertrophy)
that centers on feelings and does in
old ways of thinking that would preclude
all of these people now together
sometimes fully clothed or in the nude
hoping that no one ever gets sued
for breaking off the legal tether
now binding improbable families.
But wait. Should we really disparage
lovers who create, like hives of bees,
unions that could even cross the seas
till all people are in one marriage?
- See: “Polyamory is growing in Canada, but the legal system hasn’t caught up” by Dorcas Marfo, CTV News, 18 April 2026.