My Grandmother Plays Emily in Our Town
I
I am asking something gone
return: at least one night, her face
a girl’ s, just twenty, and
to be married in a month,
holding the dress’ s hem to her lips
as places are called. And I,
come along too late to know her
trembling, parting the curtain —
let me hear her now
perched on the ladder, recite
“But Mama,...
am I pretty enough...?”
II
When Emily marries, ladies in hats
drown out the proper vows
— it’ s what the play requires;
the everyday over the sacred. Even the set