She didn’t want this wedding dress
to be a widow,
alone,
encased in plastic
in the unused dark
of the closet,
moved after spring cleaning
to the basement
near the leaky window,
after five years
moth-balled to the
old unopened hope chest
of her mother’s closet,
weeping, weeping, weeping
for the man she lost,
subsisting on hope angels,
decaying, yellowing
a luminescent ghost,
a virgin,
never to be worn,
never to be adored,
never to be passionately wanted,
just praying, praying, praying
and attracting only moths.
Wait, wait, wait,
after all these years,
it’s the granddaughter
touching it,
measuring it,
sizing it up
and seeing it
doesn’t fit her dreams.
will never
fit her dreams
and putting it back
without a second thought.
The grandmother
touches it yellow lace
and realizes it’s not
good enough,
worthy enough
to donate to
the local goodwill.
She doesn’t have the
heart to put it in the trash
and the scavenging fury
of the gulls and crows at the dump,
or cut it into cleaning rags.
It’s too old to go back
to the closet.
and the hope chest
is overstuffed already.
She takes it outside
in the bright clear light
and places it on the concrete pad,
douses it with gasoline
of the highest octane
and throws,
the last cigarette
she will ever smoke
defiantly, sadly on it.
She watches it return to the sky
in candolescent congratulations.
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