In the bride’s garden plot
under the fan-leafed Ginko tree
beneath a ground cover of creeping juniper
and of a dry scattering of raveled leaves—
some sound, a rustling,
sound evidence of a living thing.

It ceases as she makes advance.
It ceases as she stands and waits.
It ceases as with curious hand she lifts a sprig.
And doubtless now though she has gone
but a small distance
still listening from within
the whited wedding tent staked to the lawn
it ceases still.

How good—she says
to no one else around—
how good for just one hour
to cease
to be as this unspotted thing.

*

Michael Eddie Anderson has been published in Pen Woman, Rhino: the Poetry Journal, and in the Poet and Artist Chapbook of the Northwest Cultural Council. He has worked as an editor at Rhino and now serves on their Advisory Board.  Anderson lives in Evanston, Illinois with his wife Kay.