Seventeen Years

by Francesca Lia Block & Lilly Barels

I wore fairy wings and a blue velvet dress.
Dust circled up and against,
made the brown earth wobble.

I was always on edge,
sure it was just
another charade.

You drove the shovel
deep into dry dirt
came up
without treasure.
But I wore the diamond like proof I was finally
loved
the same way I wore the pearl
covered gown
with the slit up the leg as I walked to the altar.

I needed symbols,
I didn’t believe.

It was achingly perfect,
how you held the handle.
How your eyebrows furrowed,
your forehead valleys
running with sweat.

I text you to say
Hi, I’m afraid,
but in some ways I’m less so
than when we first met.

We would talk in code
like red earthworms inching
through the parched soil,
worried, not listening.

You aren’t here now
but you answer my text
and you’ve never left.