In the Name of Love
Frank, the main character, a postal worker, defends his engagement to Ben, the postmaster, who objects to any public display of this same-sex marriage, and the marriage, itself, on religious grounds.
FRANK
In the name of love, God and I are just fine.
In the name of justice, God
and I are just fine. In the name of passion,
in the name of joy, in the name of
family, in the name of sickness,
and health and till death do us part,
in the name of fidelity, in the name of truth,
in the name of the face of the man I love
next to this picture of the woman you love,
in the name of equality, in the name of marriage,
in the name of love…God and I are just fine.
Elaine Sexton is a maker, critic, teacher, and librettist. The Post Office: An Opera in Poems is her sixth collection of poetry, and first libretto, written in collaboration with composer Laura Kaminsky. The Post Office will debut at the Brooklyn Academy of Arts in May 2026. Her poems are widely anthologized and published in journals including American Poetry Review, Poetry, Ploughshares, and O! the Oprah Magazine. A member of the National Book Critics Circle, former senior editor of ARTnews, and visual arts editor for Tupelo Quarterly, her art and book reviews have appeared in Art in America, ARTnews, Art New England, Pleiades, Prairie Schooner, and On the Seawall. Sexton lives in New York and teaches at the Sarah Lawrence College Writing Institute. elainesexton.org