a wedding 

in winter the wedding tent behind the museum
becomes a metal skeleton. just a frame
with its white plastic skin stripped away. 
the dead leaves whirl through its body. 
all january i ambled through that museum park-- 
around the metal bones trying to guess 
the species of the sleeping animal.
a great beautiful whale beached from the tiny stream
that trickled through or maybe an elephant 
who stumbled through in the night. 
i walked there from your house blocks & blocks away.
my chest wrapped with gauze & my fingers 
red from the cold. as i circled the structure
i would try to imagine that place as it was 
in april or may with all the flowers talking wild
into the air & crowds filling the tent there
to exchange vows. i have never been to 
a wedding & i'm this old but then again
maybe those strolls counted as weddings,
each a moment to speak to the dead leaves 
& the naked branches. my first boyfriend & i 
used to walk in this same museum park before
they set up the wedding tent & before i had left
for college & left my body & grew feathers & had
them each plucked out. back then we would talk 
about getting married & i would imagine 
him in a white suite & me in a goddess-like 
white dress. the whole planet would be white.
now i think if i ever get married i want to be 
wearing something auburn or brown. something 
worthy of walking through a skeleton in--
maybe even black. i watched the snow become grit 
& mud. i watched my foot prints. i watched 
the wedding tent lilt in the breeze. trees bare
of everything but their own frames. i imagine us
like that--skeletons for a whole season & i feel
on those walks sometimes just like a skeleton--
like all my flesh is falling off in crisp leaves.
like the breeze is undressing me. 
by the window of the bedroom i stay in
i unwrap the gauze & replace them with 
new fresh white ones. the old gauze are 
yellowed & red & brown around the edges.
yes, i won't be here in the spring
when they put the walls back on the wedding tent.