(inspired by Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations)
I cannot consider it tomorrow until I have slept. I was to be a married woman by this time tomorrow and as I have no husband now it cannot
be tomorrow. I will not sleep.
Midnight’s arm is not strong enough to lift and turn the calendar day, not with my sodden & angry heart resting atop it … I live this endless and awful day, a punishment for believing I could be something other
than an empty house …
I’ve got an altar for a good promise … a set of gold-plated
picture frames for good pictures,
a string of moon-headed lanterns for a good party.
I’ve got this cake … this cake turned corpse flower, the flies devoured the blooms and left the stench. I’ve got this vanishing groom for my fool’s heart. I’ve got this un-listening God for a wailing prayer. I’ve got this echo feeding me back my own begging … I got this dress, o’ this dress … wouldn’t be right to take it off now. A bride undoing her own corset?! I am unconsummated. I was a beautiful bride. I would
have been a good wife, a happy home.
I towed myself across the threshold. I am the town’s whisper fool, jilted bride, foreclosed wife, forsaken home, tantrum at God’s own feet. It seems he will not make me an upright bride in this dress so I
should marry the dirt. Lord, send me a man
to wring my neck or take my hand
truly, send me a man who is not as silent as God is to me now and I
will worship him.