by Susan Grimm

 

Beautiful girls stayed home with the meatloaf. Slipped out 
of their heart-shaped necklines, the crush of organza 

and lace pushed down like a nest. Their life an erasure.
The little sunken down bride. That look in my eyes 

with the baby and toddler and my hair badly cut. And me 
looking up like what. As if looking at the truest star,

a look more pure than any I could give now. I could do
wry or troubled or pleased but that radiance. As if what.

As if there used to be a secret realm that no longer
exists—we were climbing a hill in the country

of love, each act shining. Take up these two parts
of the thing that has torn. Take up these two parts

where something has frayed. Hours are meant
to be golden. But a back turned is the same as a wall,

a hot-coal word making a hole in the rug. We should 
marry only in winter. Clean lines so everyone can see.

Susan Grimm has been published in Sugar House Review, The Cincinnati Review, South Dakota Review, and Field.  She has had two chapbooks published. In 2004, BkMk Press published Lake Erie Blue, a full-length collection. In 2022, she received her third Ohio Arts Council Individual Artist Grant.