Chaos Theory

“Chaos: when the present determines the future, but the approximate present does not determine the approximate future.”
–Edward Lorenz

In the disorderly lives of our friends a marriage
of youngsters gallantly blinded by lusts consummated
in bawdy places, never beds—on hay bales,
on the back stairs of a dorm, or coal cellars,
and the wedding at last with noise by a band that never
once rehearsed, with faith in battering on,
a drum-driven insistent cacaphone;
despite the music the dancing rejoiced in hunger
with bulging pants, girls nominally dressed
loose-limbed in heat, dizzy with unrestraint,
dancing in couples and triples, pairing, repairing,
in the clatter and holler and moan of drunken assent
and the boisterous riot affirmed as the days moved them
to stable and loving and mindful of obligation.