There was a man who would marry his mother, and asked his <br />father for his mother's hand in marriage, and was told he could <br />not marry his mother's hand because it was attached to all <br />the rest of mother, which was all married to his father; that <br />he'd have to love something else . . . <br /> <br /> And so he went into the world to love something else, and <br />fell in love with a dining room. <br /> He asked someone standing there, may I have this dining <br />room's hand in marriage? <br /> You may not, its hand is attached to all the rest of it, <br />which has all been promised to me in connubial alliance, said <br />someone standing there. <br /> Just because the dining room lives in your house doesn't <br />necessarily give you claim to its affections . . . <br /> Yes it does, for a dining room is always to be married to <br />the heir apparent in the line of succession; after father it's <br />my turn; and only if all mankind were destroyed could you <br />succeed any other to the hand of this dining room. You'll have <br />to love something else . . . <br /> <br /> And so the man who would marry his mother was again in the <br />world looking for something to love that was not already <br />loved . . .<br /><br />Russell Edson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-having-to-love-something-else/
