for J.

 

A cardinal flies straight into my window, stuns himself,

the sound of his body ripples against glass even after

he falls confounded and quiet in the bushes below.

By the time I rush out on the porch, his body is aloft,

dazed the way you stumbled out of that bar the night

before your wedding, all flurry of white

from your chiffon dress and that ridiculous veil

we made you wear. You were at four martinis

too many, so you bent and whispered against my temple

I don’t really want to marry him, I just want to marry someone

1. Then you laughed and planted a reassuring kiss

on my temple: we were thirty with college debt,

corporate jobs, and bank accounts that made us want

to croon the blues, so naturally, this was next.

I wanted then to say you don’t have to marry him,

or anybody else. That you could take that trip to Majorca,

watch cicadas swarm the air and land in glasses of champagne

the pavement later strewn with their husks. I wish

I had whispered leave him and that we’d taken off

giggling, two swans, trailing our milky dresses

through puddles, our heels sticking in the cracks

of cobblestone streets. We would have driven all night

away from the fuss of chair covers and seven-tiered

cakes, to the days of rooftop merengue in Seville,

our awkward shuffling as if we’d just discovered

our bodies, back to Luis and Juan Carlos who kissed us

under the wisteria though neither of us could tell

which was which–a phantom life, streaking past us

in phosphorescent plumage and brown limbs.

Instead, we walked back to the hotel arm in arm,

words hanging ripe and heavy between us. Within minutes

you fell asleep, and all I could do was pull off your peacock

blue shoes, weary with vodka stains, and with a washcloth

try to wipe your waterproof lipstick from my temple,

that glittering red streak, a buoy, its silhouette still bobbing

whenever I shut my eyes.