At their wedding service, outdoors, the young bridesmaids'
dresses midnight-eggplant, grosgrain
satin shot with glints of maroon like
pheasant harvested, painted, and eaten,
the minister read Paul's letter to the Corinthians,
describing you. After the service
your high-school sweetheart talked about you,
your steadfastness, your kindness. She met you
a month after your mother had died
on a distant island, and every Friday and
Saturday night you went dancing, the only
teenagers on some wooden floor in some
club, holding each other, turning,
1958, 1959 . . .
Then, I understood – if it had been
half a generation later
you would have been lovers, you would have been married,
and it seems to me I might be dead by now,
dead long since, not married, or married
badly, never had children or written any
words. I'd have died on West 12th Street, that time,
making a bomb – badly – they would have
identified me by my little finger, my
mother sitting in the precinct, holding
my co*ked pinky.