by Kate Brock

I would like to be back in bed, yielding a thick potter’s mug

of peppermint tea beside you.

Instead, I stand just behind the doors to the sanctuary

waiting for my cue to waltz

down the aisle, my father’s arm held out at angle, the crook

like a shepherd’s hook meant 

to keep me from straying too far away. Soon, he will set my hand 

in yours. The pass complete, 

I will tiptoe up the remaining steps in heels, an attempt to lessen

the drastic difference in our heights.

I will say a silent prayer about the feathers daintily dangling 

from my dress, their tips fraying outwards

caught in a web of static cling, leaning to be close to you.

across the Atlantic a quiet space will wrap cotton sheets and wool 

blankets about our shoulders. 

We will traipse through galleries and tuck into Aphrodite’s cupboard

sifting through ingredients for the decadent

and delicate. We will curl up with a book and rest after I am unpinned

from my father’s arm.