The BlueIris Semi-Nightly Poetry Break, 1/29/08

"To My Husband"

At their wedding service, outdoors, the young bridesmaids'
dresses midnight-eggplant, grosgrain
satin shot with glints of maroon like
pheasant harvested, painted, and eaten,
the minister read Paul's letter to the Corinthians,
describing you. After the service
your high-school sweetheart talked about you,
your steadfastness, your kindness. She met you
a month after your mother had died
on a distant island, and every Friday and
Saturday night you went dancing, the only
teenagers on some wooden floor in some
club, holding each other, turning,
1958, 1959...
Then, I understood—if it had been
half a generation later
you would have been lovers, you would have been married,
and it seems to me I might be dead by now,
dead long since, not married or married
badly, never had children or written any
words. I'd have died on West 12th street, that time,
making a bomb—badly—they would have
identified me by my little finger, my
mother sitting in the pricinct, holding
my cocked pinky.

—Sharon Olds

Time is God.
God is Time.

really like this one, thanks.