Stepping Off

I teeter:
a toddler at the prospects of bedtime.
So much lies below.
These fleeting fears
scatter like the accused
under the night's amnesty.
Even tree skins shed
and leaves are left littering
the pavement like last years fashions
denied.

I'd like to believe this is the jumping off point
but it is merely the curb
and 4:30 am.
Your snoring kept me awake
although I now willingly trade
nicotine for dreams.

And we will marry in five weeks and three days and
I don't even have a hairdo to focus on

or questions of cake and the justice of the peace's intoxication level and flower arrangements and something borrowed, something blue, the flower girls and relatives and relatives, their voices rising quietly to a fury as we parade, mouths grasping our moments like silent mute fish although I know they talk, how they talk and talk. I won't have to explain your future plans to my mother again,          or her friends, or her fickle friends raised eyebrows that make her so tired that she wonders if she'll have to talk to them yet again. There will be no bouquets to toss, cheap garter belts, church bells still suggesting we atone through the celebration. No white dress giving feigning Victorian purity. No ghosts,          haunting our wedding, feeling they have the goods on us. There will be no one believing they own a piece of us like real estate, their stories irrevocable contracts of stilted
memories.

There will be no one to object, and we alone to praise.

And each snore echoing
from within your five foot eight sanctuary
that even from this curb
I seek
reminds me of the acoustical possibility
of solo occupation
and the pain of believing in
better uses of space.