by Cassandra Whitaker
Wedding In The Three Chambers of My Heart
Widowed Brides Embedded In My Left Shoulder Sharpen Knives
ahead the banquet where they will roast
peppers stuffed with nuts, grain, and glazed
with roasted garlic; an understanding
of restraint. When dancing begins the brides take
each other by the arms. The women match
their eyes, match their braids with the revolution
of their bodies; they’ve invited mothers of soldiers
to poison them to the crown. It’s the least they could do, these two
doves pretending to sue for peace with recipes,
singing for each other. Their soldier boys have all turned
their eyes over, coin is all they see. The drums call
out come from the pasture across the river. Freedom
is what the king sells the peasant for a word
sealed with flesh. They say a man can’t live forever,
the brides know this, they’re counting on it. The bride sisters
in woe hold their shoulders high against those
who would have them suffer. Poison is a way to return
what was given but not asked for, a dead loved one
by the crown, a dead child limp as a potato sack
slung across a soldier’s back; even now I feel the weight
being passed on. When soldiers return to kiss
their mother’s cheek, it shall be turned against the wind.
When soldiers drink poison it shall be hailed
by their mothers as a toast. When they die
in their sleep, as private as grief’s long hours,
widow brides will be humming with their own, plaiting
their hair with flowers, loving back, happy to home.
Wedding in My Trapezus Lays In A Wide Pool Hall Down By The River
full of celebrants racking balls
while the band warms up. When the bride appears
dressed in black boots and leather pants, her white corset laced
with flowers, her train a short sweep
behind her, she belts Proud
Mary; her bridelove sings
back, an echo in the front
row, and when she’s pulled on stage
the crowd goes wild, flowers cascade up, down,
pool players pause
and rally, before going back
to shooting, their cues cricket legs
kicking back
like the river sings back, in its own way, happy
to be sad at a wedding, the first
the river has seen in years. So many
have given the power of a name
at the power of the world, water’s wisdom
is that it manges to look so fresh, sound so clear
even when it’s not, even when’s its the oldest road
in the world;
the ceremony carries on. The feast
of fried fish and river oysters brings pigeons. Alleycats
gather in a Q outside
the kitchen door, the biggest yawns, stretches,
brindle rippling as he kneads the ground, the fish
already boring, so boring, ready for night to yank the cords
closed. At some sweaty break in the set, the bridelove swings open
the back door, leaves a foil tray at the feet of the murderers
creeping in the back. A caterer whistled, the bridelove
shouted back, Okay, love. She closed the door
on the cats, the stars continued their turn,
the river noticed nothing, I know, I know,
I know it babbled, the party had jus t begun.
Author Cassandra Whitaker (she/they) is trans writer living in rural Virginia. Whit’s work has been published in Michigan Quarterly Review, havehashad, Conjunctions, The Mississippi Review, and other places. They are a member of the National Book Critics Circle. Wolf Devouring A Wolf Devouring A Wolf is forthcoming from Jackleg Press in 2025. queer-the-wolf.com
Artist Ana Prundaru was born in Romania and presently lives in Switzerland. Alongside her legal career, she writes and illustrates for publications like Fugue, the Pinch, Third Coast and New England Review.
Gulf Stream Magazine 