Love and romance (and tradition) meant giving it up
for the privilege of belonging to someone. What girl
dressed for her wedding smells death in the white orchid,
sees imperfections in the bright diamond?
How easily I let it go, boxed it with a school play script,
pep club outfit, rogue dreams of college,
and baltered willingly into his life,
freshets babbling in streams that June wedding day.
Mrs. Somebody Else, I wrote. All those curlicues, closed
cursive loop de loops, hollow centers, but open ends, too,
I thought, to keep intact the essential girl I was,
one with ancestors, genetic traits, one who’d won
spelling bees and school offices, whose independence
had been so fiercely collared. I became wife:
of university student, of lawyer; put my hand though
his cocked arm and walked into his dreams, his schedule,
his job that would set the boundaries of our lives. I wore his name
like a label sewn into his national guard clothes,
clothes I washed and ironed while he evolved in light.
His name rode correspondence through the mail, stained
our entry in the phone book, festered in the glove compartment.
Who could find me now? Who would need to?
