SUBJECT>Arranged Marriage (New Draft) POSTER>Asher EMAIL> DATE>1111607472 IP_ADDRESS>dyn129-100-215-79.alh.reznet.uwo.ca PREVIOUS> NEXT> 85322 85327 85456 IMAGE> LINKNAME> LINKURL>

(I understand that I have posted 3 poems in 2 days. I will certainly do some detailed crits tonight. Thanks.

Arranged Marriage

White of bygone wedding days. Snow unfurls a bolt of bridal cloth; the city is not destroyed but yields. Here in these streets, in these streets, in these streets: venders of smoked chicken and clearings of the plough. She gazes into a window at bridal displays. People flock around her again. A ski jacket that some kids laugh at, poke and prod;
to deceive a single word and conceive from black.

White, right before the zamboni erases the blade marks. White, after the dog pees on the snow. White covers over speckled yellow. White solo. An empty guitar case with a layer of snow. White alphabet and being unable to whiten. Now in her apartment, there is one room unreserved for white mounting itself. She imagines she is a pigeon. To sit on the window ledge, squawk and shit on black umbrellas. Consider

the ledge collapsing at the moment it is conceived and one syllable falling faint on the snow. An alien word. She attempts a word; the walls around her flutter like drapes. The sentence, snowy, clean: thoughts, black flies swarming in the eyes of a stern preceptor.

A perpetual aftermath of something untouched. The snowy owl unfurls its wings, swoops down to the field mouse. The mouse squirming, finally releases into the need larger than itself.