Then there’s the attire.
You spend hours checking yourself out
in the mirror, the drool across the floor,
******* of your dress
and the ******* smothered in lace.

Step back, look at that face.
The realisation seeping in
like blood into a bandage
that you are almost ready.
A cast of a hundred or so
seen-once-in-two-years
with eyes on your eyes,
the cold finger ringless for
just a few seconds more.

Here it is then, the moment when
you settle down
as a child clambering into bed
for a parent-read tale.
You have chosen this man
with this face and these hands
and he will do.
The search cannot be continued.

In one month, an argument.
In one year, a child
after the umpteenth round
of relatives' questions.
The story writes itself
and oh how plain it seems,
the predictability like gone-off milk
makes you want to gag.
But, you say, it’s how it goes.
How it goes.

The woman asks if it’s the one.
You’re flummoxed for a second -
the dress or the man?
Yes, you reply.
I think so.