I Did

I should have seen

The midnight black

Coat of some loathsome cat

As it snuck into the church

On a path which must have

led under a ladder.

I know you saw me

In my ball gown dress,

Watched me from somewhere

Behind my back;

Though you didn’t see

The red bleeding from within it

Staining the pearl colored dress I settled for

Since it’s too late now to wear white

Curse the clock

Ever ticking clock

Louder and louder

Racing toward the inevitable,

The day that it will burst

Set in stone

And curse the knives

Expertly sharpened, expensive,

Blade as thin as ice on a lake

Blade as thin as eggshells

Dashed against the ground

Though somehow we managed

To dull them

Before the warranty was up

Both hexed items sat unassumingly

Wicked obscenities harbored among gifts.

How I despise that bearer of rings

Who fumbled our bands

Unable to keep them

From leaping

Back to the earth.

It seems one of us must have shed a tear,

Of love,

Of joy,

Of shame,

Of despair,

Of regret.

What a mistake we made

Joining lips

On that saturday

As the sky poured forth

tears of its own,

For the rooster that was late to crow.

And even in the May showers,

The peonies I held

Wilted to waste.

Damned be that faceless nun

That crossed our path,

Shrouded

Hidden under her black habit

As she was no daughter of God,

Rather,

Lucifer’s Lady of Luck