The invitation is rich peaches and jangling gold
coins
and frills, the calligraphed black swoops of familiar insanity.
I am unprepared again. A month is not enough
eternity.
My life is too wide for a wedding at The Beverly Hills Hotel.
I try on a pair of pants, shimmering pea green
like a lake of possibilities, a bottomless tureen,
an open invitation to endless color.
I buy a pair in salmon, cropped to the thickest part
of calves
built strong from hiking in the moist and muddy forest.
I buy a top, zippered down my sternum,
Dividing pattern from pattern, my life from Los Angeles.
I buy the pearl white of it, the background of
innocence,
the symmetry of the blood red squares.
I buy the midnight sky with buttons that open the
world.
I buy discretion and safety so my emotions will be clothed.
I buy comfort, and study the racks for fearlessness.
I will buy that too, when I find it.
I buy my own brilliance, cloaks of creativity,
and open-toed sandals for the bumpy road.
I buy smooth skin, free of imperfection, and youth.
I buy unerring visibility and power.
Later, I will pack the memory of my mother
with my teeth and with my fingertips.
On that first weekend in August,
I stand at the mirror of the Beverly Hills Hotel
and dress myself up in all my purchases.
This is a wedding: myself to my soul.
My family is all here.
