By Susan Browne

My wedding dress hung in the closet
gathering dust & cobwebs.
On a walk, I’d seen it—a simple white dress—
in a store window & bought it
& continued not planning the wedding.
Once in a while, I’d try it on
to see if it still fit.
A friend came to visit, said,
“That dress needs to see the light of day.”
I’d been living with Kenneth for nine years.
We’d been engaged for three.
I loved him. What was love?
Like Louis Armstrong said about jazz:
If you have to ask, you’ll never know.
I didn’t have to ask, did I?
Love was like a tennis court in late October,
leaves blowing across it & the dream of playing.
Marriage was a tennis ball tossed to a dog over & over,
until the ball was pulverized & the dog dead.
I didn’t tell anyone this, but there it was
like the worm in the apple.
One day, the dress & I wore a gardenia in our hair.
Kenneth’s and my vows swam in the rainlight.
Decades rolled by like tornadoes or pangolins.
Sometimes I’ve thought, we’re done, kaput.
We can’t fix the dishes & doorjambs we’ve broken.
Then we play some more. It’s not a dream
& we need lessons no one can give us.
The best thing is to forget you’re married
& go to a lonely tennis court when the wind is wild
& chase each other around like leaves.
Then lie down. Your beautiful bodies
knowing what they know.

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Susan Browne is the author of four poetry collections, including Monster Mash (Four Way Books, 2025); Just Living (Catamaran Literary Reader, 2019), winner of the 2019 Catamaran Poetry Prize; and Buddha’s Dogs (Four Way Books, 2002), winner of Four Way Books Intro Prize. She was an English Professor for 34 years and currently teaches poetry workshops online. http://www.susanbrownepoems.com