Secondhand

For my fifty-sixth birthday

my friends and I are wearing

old wedding dresses.

I am at a secondhand store,

sifting through racks of prom

and cocktail gowns.

Few wedding dresses.

This one—floor-length, fitted bodice—

is lovely, yellowed a little,

with a faint brown stain

near the waist.

Bordeaux?

Or blood?

A celebratory glass gone rogue.

It fits my body fine.

But what will I fill it with?

Me.

Bitter.

Divorced.

A cat lady who once believed

in fairy tales,

who once believed in true love, soul mates.

I wonder about her.

The woman who wore this dress.

Where is she now?

Does she haunt a house

full of screaming children

and broken toys,

or has she vanished

into a new name, a new town,

a new husband who knows nothing

about the woman who left

a groom behind?

Did she marry and scream in silence,

learning to step so lightly

the air didn’t move?

Did she cry in the shower

and imagine shoving someone

down the drain?

Did she drink gas-station coffee

while plotting a life

so completely untraceable

that she could vanish

without a note,

without explanation?

Or maybe she lived

and died long before this gown

was donated by heirs

who cleared her closets

after dementia stole her mind

before it stole her body.

Or did she live a long, quiet,

contented life

with a husband, three children, and a dog,

baking cookies that smelled

like happiness,

while her dress waited decades,

untouched by my jaded hands?

Maybe she was angry.

Maybe she was brilliant.

Maybe she went insane

on a Tuesday afternoon

and then made a meatloaf.

Maybe she donated the dress

because the woman she was then

doesn't exist anymore.

And thought someone else might—

wear it to a costume ball,

a night out with women

who have become sisters,

who will show up

with wine and tissues

after a man hands back your heart,

still warm,

bleeding.