"Pringles is a very laid-back company. Originally, they wanted to make tennis balls. But when the truck showed up full of potatoes, they just said, "Fuck it, cut 'em up." Mitch Hedberg

04 April 2012

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.

1 comment:

  1. A mighty poem. Not mighty fine, not mighty (fill in your adjective of choice). Just mighty. Hit me in the throat and wouldn't stop. Thank you for that.

    ReplyDelete

I moderate comments because the world is full of crazies. Please be patient if it takes me a day to get your valid, non-hateful comment on the page.