By Kathleen Holliday
I, too, had great expectations.
To be or not to be a wife
defined my life.
My dowry guaranteed
a husband, and I would be
a mother, helpmeet, nurse.
Nothing could be worse than
that damning epithet:
old maid.
Left at the altar – jilted.
My bouquet wilting,
I drew my veil down over my face
and let the yards of lace fall
dragging through the dust.
Years later, I still hold the knife:
May I cut you a slice -
a corner piece perhaps, with extra frosting?
Don’t mind the spiders
and the mice racing in and out,
tunnels crumbling behind them.
Mr. Dickens, I implore you -
change mine to a happy ending.
No funeral pyre,
no more desires gone up in smoke.
Set me in some future time
when I could say:
never married,
never needed to;
earned a degree, had a job, a car,
a condo in the city,
a lover who never strayed.
I’d celebrate my singular good fortune
with a cake -
not Mrs. Beeton’s recipe -
no butter, no gluten, no nuts.
I’d clear up after with a cordless vac.
I’d sweep the ceiling free of spider webs.
I’d read a novel in one sitting
then I’d take a nap.
Kathleen Holliday lives on an island in the Salish Sea. Her writing appears or is forthcoming in The Bellingham Review, The Blue Nib Literary Magazine, Cathexis Northwest Press, Common Ground Review, Poetry Super Highway, SHARK REEF, a Literary Magazine and The Write Launch. She is a graduate of Augsburg University, Minneapolis, and an erstwhile student of the Lyle's Bar School of Poetry. Her chapbook, Putting My Ash on the Line, is now available from Finishing Line Press in 2020.
All work by Kathleen Holliday