The morning is silver with birdsong.
Clapboard chapel sides

thunk down in the grass
as nude pews shudder.

The priest is sick.
His coughing will curse

both houses. The rings will roll
off the knuckles that don’t exist.

Crinoline waits, a virgin
in the dress shop, untouched

by the woman’s fingers.
It wants to be cut, trembles

for scissors. There will never be
a dress handmade from the shades

of the morning for the woman,
never specked with silver

sequins like finches pipping,
she vows. A bell’s throat

won’t clang and the hands
won’t clap after the kiss, after

the giving away
everyone wants, she fears.

 

 

 

Kamal E. Kimball is a poet currently living in the Ohio River Valley. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Zetetic, Literati Magazine, Indolent Books, Kaaterskill Basin Literary Journal and elsewhere. She is a member of the Cincinnati DIY Writers and founder of Fresh Darlings, an online writing community. She works as a grant writer and journalist. More at kamalkimball.com