The Bride Wore Headlights
I prayed to be released from my longing. Hope had no feathers. It was a scrawny bird beast that squawked and told me not to bother. But, still. All the groomsmen had their tuxedos dyed to match their moods. I stood back, waiting for the signal to toddle down the proverbial aisle, which was the way I did everything. I adjusted my headlights because my friends said that I needed to see where I was going. The harsh lights glinted off the gold lamé that every uninvited guest, all of them anxious, seemed to be wearing. Upstaging me or smiting at me, it seemed to be the same. When the groom entered, though not necessarily my groom, he kept a disrespectful distance from me. I smelled the particular tang of juniper berries wafting around his person. He carried a staff in his hand, proudly, perhaps to beat me with. I’ve endured worse. The magistrate was magisterial in his heavy velvet robes. The groom approached him and they shook hands the old familiar way that enemies sometimes do. I stood in place like a sentry. The wilted tulle of my dress hung with sad, but not bitter dejection. It was not white. I waited. The strobe of the lights shone ahead, and though I waited with a gentle thrum in my chest, no one called my name.
Michelle Reale is the author of several poetry collections , including the upcoming Let It Be Extravagant (Bordighera Press).
She teaches poetry in Arcadia University's low residency MFA program.
