Confessions of a Pregnant Bride

I used to be the wind, not the veil fluttering in its path.
I used to be the veil, not the woman obscured, a white flag
waving over her face, surrendered. I swore I’d never marry

& here I am, pressed into a delicate dress, twelve weeks
of fetus simmering inside. I am hemmed
into a laugh, drunk under the scaffold of canopy, smile

bright with heartburn. Has anyone noticed?
I used to have one heart, not three trembling all at once.
The lilies in my bouquet are just another smell I can’t bear.

One more week & I could’ve let my mammal loose.
I used to suck in my tummy for fun. What is a façade
without the bones behind it, the bedrock upon which we stand?

I want to grab the microphone & say it: there was no will you
marry me? My love looked beyond my skeleton and said:
will you be the mother of my children? A proposal that ended

in unprotected hunger. The rest is a spectacle of wedding.
For family, friends. The ring is the umbilical cord, the placenta
is the vow. I count three flashes of jagged light

when I close my eyes. One for each of my animal hearts.
The happiest day of my life? I was so ravenous I could’ve eaten
the groom. I didn’t, and that is called sacrifice.

---

Geula Geurts is a Dutch-born poet and essayist living in Jerusalem. She is a graduate of the Shaindy Rudolph Graduate Program in Creative Writing at Bar Ilan University. Her mini chapbook, Like Any Good Daughter, was published by Platypus Press. She was named a finalist in the 2018 Autumn House Chapbook Contest and a semifinalist in the 2020 Crab Creek Review Poetry Prize. Her work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Pleiades, The Penn Review, Blood Orange Review, New South, River Heron Review, Tinderbox Editions, and Counterclock, among others. She works as a literary agent at the Deborah Harris Agency.