Russell Edson - The Having To Love Something Else

There was a man who would marry his mother, and asked his father for his mother's hand in marriage, and was told he could not marry his mother's hand because it was attached to all the rest of mother, which was all married to his father; that he'd have to love something else . . .

And so he went into the world to love something else, and fell in love with a dining room. He asked someone standing there, may I have this dining room's hand in marriage? You may not, its hand is attached to all the rest of it, which has all been promised to me in connubial alliance, said someone standing there.

Just because the dining room lives in your house doesn't necessarily give you claim to its affections . . . Yes it does, for a dining room is always to be married to the heir apparent in the line of succession; after father it's my turn; and only if all mankind were destroyed could you succeed any other to the hand of this dining room.

You'll have to love something else . . .
And so the man who would marry his mother was again in the world looking for something to love that was not already loved . . .