Cheryl Snell The 2River View, 7.3 (Spring 2003)
Epithalamion

Your voice pooled around my common senses.
I pulled white silk through my brass ring,
dropping hints at your pigeon-toed feet.

A pulse jumped under my blue-veined skin.
A mosaic of pain broke out like war.

At the rehearsal, Mother in her flatline calm
bombed our drinks with cherries
and posted a curse above the published banns.

We sat there glumly, holding back her hands.

Before this devolves into a narrative of hindsight—
your heart grows numb, the kids burn down the halfway house—
you should know I’ve come prepared: keys jammed
between my knuckles, a map of alternatives on the dash.

Right beside the rigid Mary. Right under your lucky dice.

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