If you saw my footprints around the barn loft ladder, you would know I tie each bale with sisal twine and secrets. If you saw me kneel among cut sweetcorn stalks, you would know I hear vespers in the auger’s rush. If Red-tails scouted the warren’s edge, or murders called from their barbed wire roosts, […]
for Matthew Twenty-two, come from the underground, you’re through with the mine’s night shift and wear coal dust like vernix while playing Clair de Lune. Moths crowd the porch-lit screen door, and you’ve come to trust your ear for every chord. Dark note by note, how many hours you’ve searched for songs that burn like […]
These days, you don’t just buy a solitaire. You look for flaws with magnifying loupes, check color grades, make setting choices: flared four-prong cathedral, ridged contour, or flutes of baguette accents down the sides. The bands, once standard 14k gold, now come in weapons-grade titanium. It stands to reason, one would think, as rings become […]
Having played the roles of bride’s best friend, groom’s sister, last minute fill-in, and token female cousin, you’re prepared for dyed-to-match high heels, the blisters, cold beef, warm beer, the chicken dance, and the dozen well-meaning guests who pat your hand and ask, Have you found someone special yet, sweetheart? You’ve learned to include in […]
Legend has it that if a single woman sleeps with a piece of groom’s cake under her pillow, she will dream of her future husband. Afraid to stifle its prophetic powers with Tupperware or plastic wrap, you leave it on a plate and tell yourself eight hours alone with your Prince Charming, make believe or […]
(Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March”) Applause. Then arm-in-arm they quickstep down the aisle, matrimony’s new recruits, parading for the crowd of relatives and seasoned friends who secretly count down the days until the war begins: disputes about which house, which job, which sedatives will damp their A.D.H.D. kids; the sneak attacks of Lust and Pride, the mind […]