It’s easier
this way, with no one
to have to give her daughter
away— No walk down an aisle
with a parent on each side,
as her parents flanked her
thirty-six years ago,
the priest meeting them
at the foot of the altar
to ask Who gives this woman
away? As if in that moment,
every misgiving could resolve
with a simple phrase. What was
released? resigned? She doesn’t
have the album anymore
which was made of that entire
evening— a handspan thick,
each page crowded with faces
which she now barely recalls.
When two of her daughters tell her
their father has said he can’t be
a father to them, she feels again
the papery edges of that wound
but closes the book more
firmly now each time.