we stood surrounded by red. Tulips,
carnations, the scarlet angora I wore

in solidarity with myself
because I’d never dreamed

of a white wedding,
never dreamed of marrying

a man who’d already said I do.
I was only beginning to learn

the multiple meanings of cleave,
only beginning to understand

a woman’s body is never
wholly her own. Dark velvet

of the white-frosted cake,
my spectator pumps,

tilted bloom of my womb:
so much that day was red.

If I tell you a story about my body,
shouldn’t I say most beautiful

or most homely in all the land?
Shouldn’t I say it’s foretold, the queen

ransoms her magic compass
for a kingdom of sugar and salt?

All these years so much we’ve left
unsaid. He’s become a man who tends

hyacinths and zinnias. He’s learned
to prune the thorny Knock Out rose.

Annual, perennial—we’ve both come to see
beauty thrives on what’s cut, and when.

I should’ve seen all that red and trembled.
But it was his hand, when I took it, that shook.