by Angie Macri

Race through the language, a circuit of laws
like men hunting for brides, rose
in their teeth. Girls line up in white, bits of bone
fitted as hourglass. The sand runs
until it’s done. They cast their fathers’ names aside
and take the new, covered by the title, Mrs.
now. They never have to use their own name again,
just the groom’s. He hasn’t changed at all.
The ring she slipped on his hand chases itself,
snake with tail in its mouth, ring he chose
when he bought hers. His snake, then,
although he expresses surprise, dismay.
How could she be so careless as to trick him so?
Gold spins around his skin and wears a groove.

Angie Macri is the author of Sunset Cue (Bordighera), winner of the Lauria/Frasca Poetry Prize, and Underwater Panther (Southeast Missouri State University), winner of the Cowles Poetry Book Prize. Recent poems appear/are forthcoming in The Common, Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, and Pleiades. An Arkansas Arts Council fellow, she lives in Hot Springs.