a bride

Curling my hair in an empty house

The cream-and-lace dress hangs

over a chair, waiting to be worn,

a little bit torn but still beautiful,

a little bit broken but still loveable.

Softly the violins sing, a serenade

or a lament? Walking down the aisle,

walking to new life as a bride,

or the bride of Christ. Is this new life

or a death? I don't know which

I'm pretending to be. Alone I pretend

to be a bride, but whose? Why

would they leave the bride alone

to curl her own hair, sob in that chair

where the wedding-death dress hangs?

The virgin bride prepares to lie

in her coffin, a slow walk down the aisle,

her last walk from the earth to her grave

in a worn-out wedding dress.