Goin' to the Chapel

has been stuck in my head since yesterday. I blame it on Etsy. I was looking at bridal items and there was a shrug with that name, and it just kept over and over in my head. And not even the whole song, which is one thing. Just that stupid chorus. So perhaps now I have plagued you with the curse, and we can all be miserable together.

Yesterday afternoon Tom and I went to Eliot to meet Julie and she was a SWEETIE! So warm and lovely; she hugged us when we got there! I'm so happy that such a nice woman will be performing our wedding for us. We planned the ceremony all out, and I had an outline and everything all ready for her when we got there. When she heard I was a poet, we talked a little about incorporating a poem of my own. . . I'll have to see about that! I think most of my poems just aren't the right tone for a wedding ceremony.

This is the only one that may be deemed even remotely appropriate, and I think that's quite a stretch.


Like X-Rays

You in your physical body never appeared
in the dream—you were a concept hovering
at the edge of everything that happened: something about you
in the strange blue poppies that bloomed in charmingly rapid
photosynthesis, the perfect desk
with cubbyholes and secret drawers—backdrop shot
through with a tinge of everything I have ever wished.

I sewed crow wings
to my shoulder blades. More accurately, asked
you to, with your steady hand, not to mention
the unease I feel at the sight, the needle
gleaming dull
under a layer of pulled skin. I opened
my new wings out in two arches
from my shoulders—they were like mountains
in the dark.

In the morning I was a reckless brightness,
soul alone in whisperland, you a silent
something elsewhere, in a place of packages
and barcodes,
an exact world.

I think of the people around you, filing
by in heavy thick-soled boots, gleaming black
against the dirty thirsty snow. Who are they?
Not the soul-saving brigade. But forget
about them. I’m trying to, writing you
this letter in the sky over this house, so cloud-wispy
and real. You see the shapes
of my close-mouth words? I will try to make a sound
for you.


My poems are just too complicated a lot of the time. Yes, a lot are about love, but it's not just blinding happiness. And a lot of the ones that are like that, it's not completely obvious they're about love. So I think we'll just let Allen Ginsberg and e.e. cummings do their thing with the readings we've chosen. I'll put the full text on here in the next day or so. And then we'll have pictures! I'm actually really happy that this week has just been a mad rush. I'm terrible when anticipating things for a long time. I'm like a kid on Christmas Eve. So the less time I have to look forward to something, the happier I am! :) Yay yay yay! Wedding in 2 days!