My Grandfather, who did not attend my wedding, too far into his eighties for a fifteen-hour drive, too stymied by his past to step on a plane (the first plane he boarded dropped him in Korea, my mother reminds me), & I too tattooed & sailor-mouthed for his Christian-raised, Midwestern sensibilities. He sends a check for the honeymoon with a level of generosity I’ve not known from him—he is happy I’ve finally found someone, a man, to claim me. The check is not made out to me, but to a Mrs. F- – – – a name I have not chosen, legally nor otherwise, & I worry the bank might not cash it. But they do. This is marriage country, & I am meant to belong to someone more capable than myself—not the thirty-two years of red stories that delivered me here, not my two-job dad driving a cab from dusk to dawn after a long day of copier cold calls, not my mom sewing women into bridesmaid dresses in every shade & shimmer of gaudy. With a ring & a signature, a wand & a wish, something as old & borrowed as money & land—for as long as our marriage lasts, I am newly the in-law of a doctor, in-law of a DC defense contractor. I am not myself.  It’s a celebration—here’s a free gym membership & a Keurig. Here’s a new KitchenAid & a big, fenced backyard in a neighborhood that’s greener than anywhere I’ve ever lived. 

Stevie Edwards holds a PhD in creative writing from the University of North Texas and an MFA in poetry from Cornell University. Stevie’s poems have appeared in Poetry Magazine, American Poetry Review, TriQuarterly, The Southern Review, and elsewhere. They are a Lecturer at Clemson University and author of Quiet Armor (Northwestern University Press, 2023), Sadness Workshop (Button Poetry, 2018), Humanly (Small Doggies Press, 2015), and Good Grief (Write Bloody Publishing, 2012). They are also the Poetry Editor of The South Carolina Review. Originally a Michigander, they now live in South Carolina with their husband and a small herd of rescue pit bulls.