on paper

your acquired last name
as familiar to me now
as our names together 
were to me
for a time.
boarding passes,
tickets, invitations
holiday greetings,
receipts, returns,
mailing addresses,
legal proceedings.
a fragmented progression of 
our initials and ampersands.
holding hands.
embossed evidence
of it all being more than
the early chemical reactions
and series of disasters
that kept us together,
that i'd prefer to think of it all
now as.