Mother/Marriage, Courtney LeBlanc

The first time I married

I asked my mother

for her wedding dress,

wanted to cut

a piece from it to make

a handkerchief, wanted

to carry a piece

of my parents’ marriage down

the aisle with me. My mother

refused. Even though I was

her last daughter to marry.

Even though her dress lay

carefully folded in her cedar

chest, slowly yellowing.

 

Three years later, when I told

her we were separating she told

me she was glad

she hadn’t allowed me to destroy

her dress. Since I was destroying

my marriage. Since I didn’t

understand the sanctity of it all.

 

The second time I married

I eloped, exchanged vows

in the wilds of Alaska. I wore

a custom-made dress in pale

champagne and white lace.

Carried only a bouquet

of wild flowers picked

from the property. My mother

was the last person

I called.

 

© Courtney LeBlanc

Courtney LeBlanc is the author of the chapbooks All in the Family (Bottlecap Press) and The Violence Within (Flutter Press) and is an MFA candidate at Queens University of Charlotte. Her poetry is published or forthcoming in Public Pool, Rising Phoenix Review, The Legendary, Germ Magazine, Quail Bell Magazine, Brain Mill Press, Haunted Waters Press, and others. She loves nail polish, wine, and tattoos. Read her blog at www.wordperv.com, follow her on twitter: @wordperv, or find her on facebook: www.facebook.com/poetry.CourtneyLeBlanc.  

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