Drinking Alone at a Bed & Breakfast
on the Eve Before My Wedding
The eve before my wedding,
and I sit alone on this canopied bed.
Tomorrow my new husband will lie here next to me.
We’ll besottedly whisper about the crudité
& crabcakes, we didn’t get to eat,
the speech that read more like a eulogy
& how his Uncle Dan drank too much again.
I pour a glass of wine—
wish for something stronger.
It was eight months ago when I found this bed & breakfast.
Historic, charming old structure, temperate, refined—
everything I’m not.
Handsomely traditional
from the delicate crocheted bedspread,
to the his & hers monogrammed robes.
It must be right I remember thinking
as I entered the foyer. I felt myself recoil
like a heretic entering a Mass.
From the closet door my silk, white wedding dress
hangs like a headless bride. The bodice stuffed
with the crumpled fronds of pale, pink, tissue paper.
The dress knows who I am, I think, but will do its best.
I refill the wine glass; raise it to a toast.
*
Beverly Hennessy Summa’s poems have appeared in the New York Quarterly, Rust + Moth, Chiron Review, Book of Matches, Nerve Cowboy, Anti-Heroin Chic, Trailer Park Quarterly, Hobo Camp Review, Buddhist Poetry Review and elsewhere. Beverly grew up in New York and New Hampshire and currently lives in the Lower Hudson Valley with her family. She can be found at beverlyhennessysumma.com.
