Brief as the posy Briefer yet my time on earth with you. Marry me.

Cast as a tiny lyric that turns abruptly into a proposal, the poem hinges on the contrast between the “posy” (a small bouquet, and by extension a brief poem) and the speaker’s limited time “on earth.” The compression of the lines enacts the theme: life and language are both short, so the speaker refuses ornament in favor of direct commitment. The final imperative—“Marry me.”—reads as a memento mori transformed into urgency and devotion: awareness of mortality becomes a reason to choose intimacy now, not later. The tenderness of “with you” suggests that what matters is not duration alone but shared time.