I have come to Cleveland to wed
it is winter and wild white snow
falls on my coat
my teeth chatter
my dead father floats
down the river
towards the furnace of the
steel mill
His bones will
become a car, a bed frame,
for someone else
who might right now
be looking out their window

I try to read the signs
but I have no one to talk to
as I walk Literary, Professor, College streets
I see black telephone wires
crisscross the sky
from Pittsburgh to San Francisco
to Cleveland
I have come to wed
the band will play polkas

My father smiled as he said
I will dance on your grave
to those he disliked
bitter seeped through the cracks
like salt on Pittsburghs sidewalks
he will not walk down the aisle
to give me away
he gave me away at birth
to the fairies, to the muse, to the story
to the silence

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