The jury is still out on you,
the blonde bridesmaid told me -
fierce mind, careless heart,
or foolish heart, troubled mind?
The other bridesmaids wasped around
the head table with their bets on how
long it'd last, my latest experiment
with love. Wasn't even my wedding:
I was just a pale groomsman,
thin after pneumonia set up shop and
picked me clean - I danced anyway,
my usual awkward elbow shuffle,
at least my haircut was recent.
She knew she was on to something:
that second marriage didn't even last
two years. I found the empty *****
bottles clinking in the linen closet,
the angry pharmacies calling to cancel
secret pill frenzies... I stood still
as alder as she screamed and threw
coffee at the wall until the police came,
told us to shut up, dwindled into parcels
of brassy shadow at the end of the stair.
If I had bet on myself at that wedding
I would've said open heart,
hopeful mind. But every crushing night
when I wake to insects and starlight,
to insomnia and the Ten of Swords,
divided into thought and viscera,
I know I was reckless, reckless, reckless.