poem: Mary Bennet

Maid of Honor, bent daisy-white over the table, her
best dress, fingers like tapeworm — light and
strangled on his arms, dying on his lapel;
he took her to foam-swept edge, champagne toast. she
kept on sidelines, skirting the women and their loudness, she
was attached hip-and-hearth to piano; they had brought
someone in and wouldn’t let her play. He watched
her move nervously as if she was still
bound to unplayed song, the melody needing
actualization: so he asks her
to dance. she dips, fizzing-exhilaration, eyes anywhere
but his. red cusp flowers, drained from the bride’s hair
into vases, banquet dressings, sheep-head-shaped
pastries. and her eyes with the red-pollen center
when he, working bee, catches them. her sister
in white, mirth among mirth at
height of everything, sheepish pride of new
husband; Maid of Honor (one of
three, the other in a whirl, ribbons shaking like
cowtail shaking as cow trundles away; the other
serene in swan-goodness, dancing also
merrily) and she, in his arms, little faint
little gasp he could have done worse. touch her
as she shudders into being, Eros less
abstracted now, she could play him songs, even badly,
even out of tune, at the dawn or the end of
time — calm yourself, not there yet, he bows once, says,
should we go again?