after the wedding
a poem about relief
The shirt I pull on after still smells like me
fresh after a shower, the magnolia oil I slathered on my limbs
this morning in pumps of two or three or four:
numbers which meant something when I counted them.
//
Like the steps up and down to our apartment.
I count them as I go, one two three four one two three four,
trusting in the toe fall,
hoping for the heel connect.
//
The wedding cake I made today, in this shirt, had swiss buttercream.
Which you may not know means I prepared: I
wiped the bowls and beaters and paddles with vinegar.
I collected egg whites, pure, which tolerate no fat. I
whisked and whisked and whisked with sugar over fire,
then beat and beat and beat in butter.
Four layers of cake and three layers of filling -
I pretend the shell of icing makes four, which makes it even,
which makes it right.
//
I stood outside the chapel, with cigar smoke curling around my hair,
which was also curled, heatless, around silk rods I carried through the night,
which held me through the beating and the whipping and the sleeping,
all of which the curls held. And the icing held.
//
And I held him, in the cab home,
and I almost cried at the beauty of it all:
I made a cake, and two people got married,
and I drank until my shoes fell off, and all of it was ok.
//
One two three four one two three four:
It's all ok. It's all even. It all held.
About the Creator
Day 4 of Quitting
If this is how sobriety feels, maybe it’s better to go through life a little buzzed… this, along with other hits like, I want to kill myself, I wish I was dead, and I’m going to throw myself off a bridge have been the only thoughts on rotation these past few days. I promise myself that if, in a month, I still feel like this (‘this’ meaning despondent, full of rage, and simultaneously numb) I can go back to smoking. Until mid-February though? Nicotine is off the table.
By sleepy drafts7 days ago in Longevity
Comments (7)
How do you take something like... icing a cake... and make it intriguing and beautiful, and make us want to read about it forever? Asking for a friend.
This is an awesome poem
I'm appalled I didn't comment on this sooner. Suze, this is truly magnificent. There's an almost chaotic sense of OCD here, not a purist one, which renders this poem so transient, as though the numbers are meant for THIS DAY only and nothing else, the 1234 repeated from daybreak to day's end as a mantra for holding the stress together in an order only you can control. It's beautifully done. I think your stanza about curls holding is my favorite, for it exemplifies this absolutely perfectly. Everything held. And it was beautiful. Now, we can let go.
Omg this was so good. I'm guessing this is autobiographical because of the wedding and the baking? I've been hoping to hear about the wedding in your poems!! And the cake looks great!! I have a special soft spot for poems that include symptoms of OCD in them because its soo underdone and I desperately want to read more like this!! The way it all came together to form those last two lines was just so clever and satisfying, a literal masterpiece! I was going to tell you that 'trusting in the toe fall, hoping for the heel connect' was my favourite part but now I have no idea what was because it was all so perfect. Ahh I just absolutely adore your poems!!!
I really enjoyed the story telling rythem of this poem. As someone with OCD and a need for even numbers, I also really connected
"And I held him, in the cab home," My mind could go a couple of different ways with this.
great poem, love it.