Epithalamium

By EMILY LEITHAUSER

 
The morning after we decided not to get engaged
(I’d ridden the streetcar alone;
 
I felt purposeful and ashamed, my mouth stained with wine)
I sat down in the shower and wept
 
into the crook of one elbow, my arms folded over,
as the shampoo ran down my breasts
 
and spine. I was studying the contours of my knees, when it
took me suddenly,

 
the thought: I don’t remember if I assigned it words, or if
the feeling came to me
 
in pieces, like a poem. I knew outside I would apologize,
again; I knew it would hurt
 
us both, again; I knew were I to marry you someday,
theoretically,
 
when we wounded one another there would be no threat
of canceling the future.
 
In my towel, in New Orleans, incredulous, in the mirror, I think
I knew. I knew I would wait
 
to tell you. I knew that telling was impossible that day:
a saxophone outdoors,
 
the sun spangling its brass. I was seduced by pastels and chicory,
by voodoo shops and garlands
 
of beads, by swamp-heat, by the tables outside set for two,
and my secret answer yes.

 

[Purchase Issue 19 here.] 

 

Emily Leithauser’s first book, The Borrowed World, won the Able Muse Book Award and was published in 2016. Her poems and translations have appeared in Literary Imagination, New Ohio Review, Blackbird, and Southwest Review, among other publications. She is an assistant professor of English at Centenary College of Louisiana.

Epithalamium

Related Posts

Image of an orange cupped in a hand

May 2023 Poetry Feature: New Poems by Our Contributors

TIMOTHY DONNELLY
Thorn-blossom! Tender thing, prone to solitude / like yours truly, don’t get it twisted if I reach out my hand— / it isn’t to pluck you, who are my beacon down this path, but a gesture / of acknowledgment common among my kind. / When the lukewarm breezes nod off

Red Lanterns in Night Sky

On Wariness

MYRONN HARDY
There is rhythm on the pavement. / There is rhythm in small / apartment rooms. / I’m over slicing tomatoes. / I’m over drinking wine. / I’m performing as not to be / deformed     as not / to show what I shouldn’t. / I don’t want to feel everything.

Image of two blank canvases on a white wall

Nina and Frida Enter the Chat

FELICE BELLE
these biddies with their deadbolt backs/ take naps / while i construct/ canvas from corset cast / art does not wait until you are well / what they did not understand—the training was classical / chopin, motherfuckers/ carry on like she some backwater bluesy / least common denominator