The room once dim, now lavishly lit with happy tears
and hugs crossing borders drawn by outsiders in shades of hate,
here in the warmth of safety, vibrant with family of friends,
celebrating the life of two meant to be one.
It’d been a long road, paved with taunts and tears,
legal walls with no footholds, running in mazes
with no exits, racing clocks in cars with spinning wheels
for a courthouse ceremony footnoted by forms and fees.
And now? Groom and groom in easy embraces,
guests who were lawyers where they’d lived, laborers here.
In this room, speaking languages without being mocked, sharing
love repulsed by many. Dish after succulent dish carefully planned,
served with personal flair, part of a life’s plan of doing things right
in a world gone tragically wrong. The cake, a towering monument to love,
iced in snowy white, a topper shining “LOVE WINS,” thickly dusted
with gold glitter, sparkling like fireflies that give life to a solemn sky.
Shelly Blankman and her husband live in Columbia, Maryland, where they fill their now-empty nest with three cat rescues and a foster dog. They have two sons, one of whom lives in New York, the other, in San Antonio. Shelly’s career has generally followed the path of public relations/journalism. However, her first love has always been poetry. Shelly’s poetry has appeared in Praxis Magazine Online, The Ekphrastic Review, Visual Verse, Silver Birch Press, and Super Poetry Highway, among other publications. Her other interests include designing cards, making memory books, and of course refereeing cats!
© 2019, Shelly Blankman
Halfway Down the Stairs 