Day 4: For my Ex-Girlfriend, On Her Wedding Day (Epithalamium)

For my Ex-Girlfriend, On Her Wedding Day (Epithalamium)

When I am not wishing him

some horrible disfugurment

I am wishing you both well.

He can fill you so deeply,

your body is changing shape.

You will be furnished

registered, your greatest

kitchen wishes come true.

The cobalt cups, the garlic press,

you should wear them on your gown.

Personally, I like you better

in those old tank tops

we know better than to call

wife beaters,

and a baseball cap;

the way you bend

the crown repeatedly,

just so, your relentless,

your perfectionist hands

(my knees, my knees), and

I would choose

any kind of bliss

for you, even domestic

if it were mine to choose,

but Pachelbel?

Is there anything more narcotic

than that 4/4 stupor,

redundant, I guess,

as me at your wedding?

Do you recall our vows

to wear red to one anothers' funeral?

It was me, I gave you life

from the inside, animated you 

when it seemed nothing

could put a smile on your face,

pulled you with gleaming

white hot hands

from a very dark place.

I didn't get you anything.

I gave you everything

except that which was

never mine to give.

I am with a man now,

I keep my hair long

in observance of an unspoken rule.

Whenever I turn my back,

he reaches for my breasts

with the entitlement

of an infant;

I have one bisexual foot

astride the door.

I can hardly let him inside me

anymore, even though

or perhaps because there is no

risk of your depth of puppetry, (look, 

I am hardly moving my lips)

and and even as you are writing your own vows,

I am writing mine,

my pink spraypaint vows

are so fine against the red brick

of the church: even as you model

so many aprons,

wife, mother, hostess,

May the women

that I love, may she

never be eclipsed.