s w i f t s  &  s l o w s: a quarterly of crisscrossings

Bride
 David Bateman & Kathleen Florence

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bride

to have sat in that church
knowing the bride loved the bridesmaid
to hold you on that dance floor
in your beautiful floral form fitting dress
filling it out like classic drumlins hung with tulip fields
similes unafraid to be laughed at and to blossom

to have known she loved you as much as she did the bridesmaid
to have held those thoughts within my bulging heart
to have loved you too in a way no one might have imagined
to hold the desire to wear those dresses
to be those bridesmaids
from an early age

filling out sartorial splendours
smiling wildly at the excess of sumptuary law

to have known before the vows were taken
that marriage would never last
to have held that knowledge
sitting in that church
to have known these moments of deception
were parts of the margins you were relegated to

to hold those thoughts so close it would never phase you
to walk suddenly into another gender
smiling like strawberries – tulips – bulbs – fit to bursting
filling lips with the viral promise of another extravagant
full-bodied kiss

to have held yourself on notice for every moment of deception
to come without notice
to hold a kind of lying in your heart as a way to survive

to have held that embrace you knew was coming
but dared not wait for
to have seen this from a pew at a wedding where you felt like
filling figurative language with the promise of sumptuous girth
smiling like you were the only one who knew
but every body knew
you were always a bridesmaid

Poem: David Bateman. Images: Kathleen Florence.

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David Bateman is a freelance arts journalist, painter, and performance poet. He has published numerous books of poetry and has taught literature and creative writing at post-secondary institutions across Canada. He lives in Toronto, Ontario. His book, Dr. Sad was recently published by University of Calgary Press.  Read review on Arteidolia.

Kathleen Florence writes poetry for the stage.  She puts down words to perform them up, monologue sing speak, move story sound around river flow. Born on the border of American beats and Canadian concretes, the language wordplay stirred from this bird has some sibling associations with her work as a visual artist and writer of grrrrl grunge rocker songs. Kathleen Florence blogspot→