Weekly Edition #33
Art by Mary Cassatt
Megan Married Herself by Caroline Bird
She arrived at the country mansion in a silver limousine.
She’d sent out invitations and everything:
her name written twice with “&” in the middle,
the calligraphy of coupling.
She strode down the aisle to “At Last” by Etta James,
faced the celebrant like a keen soldier reporting for duty,
her voice shaky yet sure. I do. I do.
“You may now kiss the mirror.” Applause. Confetti.
Every single one of the hundred and forty guests
deemed the service “unimprovable.”
Especially the vows. So “from the heart.”
Her wedding gown was ivory; pointedly off-white,
“After all, we’ve shared a bed for thirty-two years,”
she quipped in her first speech,
“I’m hardly virginal if you know what I mean.”
(No one knew exactly what she meant.)
Not a soul questioned their devotion.
You only had to look at them. Hand cupped in hand.
Smiling out of the same eyes. You could sense
their secret language, bone-deep, blended blood.
Toasts were frequent, tearful. One guest
eyed his wife — hovering harmlessly at the bar — and
imagined what his life might’ve been if
he’d responded, years ago, to that offer in his head:
“I’m the only one who will ever truly understand you.
Marry me, Derek. I love you. Marry me.”
At the time, he hadn’t taken his proposal seriously.
He recharged his champagne flute, watched
the newlywed cut her five-tiered cake, both hands
on the knife. “Is it too late for us to try?” Derek whispered
to no one, as the bride glided herself onto the dance floor,
taking turns first to lead then follow.
Other poems I read this week: (click the link for the full poem)
"If I kill myself today
Tomorrow’s milk will curdle
untended at the door
Some clothes in the
washing machine will stay
unwashed forever
A hundred ants will gather in
quiet celebration around some
spilt tea in the kitchen
A desperate doorbell
will fall from favour
on deaf ears" -If I Kill Myself Today by Devashish Makhija
"Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he’s dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.
Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning. -Not Waving but Drowning by Stevie Smith
"if it’s better to be good at a bad job or bad at a good job,
but there must be some kind of satisfaction
in doing a job so poorly, you’re never asked to do it again.
I’m not saying he’s a hero, but there’s a guy out there
who overloaded a transformer and made a difference,
because in a moment, sweating through my suit,
groping in the dark when my boss was already home,
I learned that I’d work any job this hard, ache
like this to know that I could always ache for something.
There’s a hell for people like me where we shovel
the coal we have mined ourselves into furnaces
that burn the flesh from our bones nightly,
and we never miss a shift." -Shift by Jamaal May
"She never knew the brittle rose would wake
The far-off dormant egypt of its day
That she entombed; spring gave, autumn would take
The mocking pity of its death away,
High summer that she lived through would be killed,
Sink down, die prematurely on the noon.
And in the lamplight grey with love be stilled,
And even she become austere too soon;
He companies the winter of the rose,
Under the winter's lamp delineates
So lovingly the petals that she grows
Tragic with all, no artist recreates;
For Blooded Damask was the flower she chose,
And our tears fill the Resurrection Rose."
-A Flower Found in a Book by Patrick Bowles
From The Paris Review: Issue no. 28 (Summer–Fall 1962)
Recommended Listening:
Copulations - Peter Cat Recording Co. (Live at Oddbird Theatre) jaded by bowls Mashrou' Leila: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert
Forever - Pete Drake & his talking steel guitar
Links of the Week: You Should've Asked Curato
Andy Warhol’s Polaroid Pictures
Austin Kleon's '100 things that made my year (2018)' list (what a heartwarming list! :) ) What Do We Mean When We Call Art ‘Necessary’? Photographer Spends Years Finding Original Locations of Vintage Vinyl Covers
New on the website:
I had the pleasure of interviewing Suryakant Sawhney & Kartik Pillai about Peter Cat Recording Co.'s upcoming album Bismillah, their visual aesthetic and new direction that the band's taking.
The first part of the interview (second half when the album releases) is up on the website. You can read it here.