True Sisters Know How to Stitch a Real Wedding Dress

My mother got married in a hand stitched dress
that each of her four sisters contributed a  
piece of their souls into the embroidered lace:
a skein of swans in perfect v formation 
flew up her left sleeve, doves fluttered down 
her right, peacock trains fanned cardioid eyes
of the most luminous white across her torso and 
bluebirds hermitaged in the ivory lines of her back.  And since, they knew from experience that men  are fickle- each secretly sewed coins and jewels into the hem, for the inevitable day when her children would scream too loud in his ears and he will see only her fat and leave like a wolf in the night.