What I Should Have Worn at My Wedding

By LIESL JOBSON

 

Potato skins, not peach skin satin,
pills, not pearls for buttons at my wrists,
onions in my bouquet, for coming tears.

A headband of fists, not fuchsias.
The lilies should have stayed in the field,
calfskin slippers would have looked better
on the unslaughtered cow.

Our guests can’t take back the gifts
and I can’t unwind 15 seconds
on the clock—let alone 15 years.

Last week the diamond fell from my ring
while I watched shopping centre clowns
and the cleaner swept it away with popcorn
like so much confetti.

 

 

Liesl Jobson is a writer, photographer, and musician living in Cape Town.

Click here to purchase Issue 04

From the beginning, The Common has brought you transportive writing and exciting new voices. We are committed to supporting writers and maintaining free, unrestricted access to our website, but we can’t do it without you. Become an integral part of our global community of readers and writers by donating today. No amount is too small. Thank you!

What I Should Have Worn at My Wedding

Related Posts

Sasha Burshteyn: Poems

SASHA BURSHTEYN
The slagheap dominates / the landscape. A new kurgan / for a new age. High grave, waste mound. / To think of life / among the mountains— / that clean, clear air— / and realize that you’ve been breathing / shit. Plant trees / around the spoil tip! Appreciate / the unnatural charm! Green fold, / gray pile.

New York City skyline

Lawrence Joseph: New Poems

JOSEPH LAWRENCE
what we do is // precise and limited, according to / the Minister of Defense, // the President / is drawing a line, // the President is drawing / a red line, we don’t want to see 

rebecca on a dock at sunset

Late Orison

REBECCA FOUST
You & I will grow old, Love, / we have grown old. But this last chance // in our late decades could be like the Pleiades, winter stars seen by / Sappho, Hesiod & Galileo & now by you & me.