marriage plot

now when i think of you i think of eugenides 

of the marriage plot 

of pulling out airpods to say hello on a street corner in the west village 

of the virgin suicides 

of cecilia, lux, bonnie, mary, therese

their blonde hair 

like yours

like all of yours 

i was so jealous then 

i had to stop eating 

of detroit of toledo 

of tree lined suburban streets

of city beautiful 

of the ivy league 

of catholic mass

you told me you’re a convert

you told me you haven’t drank wine in thirty years 

over vichysoisse 

a word that rolls off your tongue 

you were a poet

of steve madden 

cheap chelsea boots

private helicopters

university towns 

beetle infested elm trees outside the lisbon house 

slowly dying 

the tree outside yours i would climb

and watch your world turn 

throwing rocks at beehives at the swim club

deserving to get stung

skinny bodies

and easter morning 

chess lessons 

the classics

giving it one more try 

the new exhibit at moma

the way you thought i hated you 

the way we were in grief

700 pages about the pope 

one day could be a movie 

the imprisonment of being a girl

the way it made your mind active and dreamy

i cut off all my hair

and pretended not to be

Emma Burger is a Chicago-based writer. She is the author of the novels Little Rich Kids and Spaghetti for Starving Girls. You can find her work in Hobart, Write or Die Magazine, and Black Lipstick, at emmaburgerwrites.com, or on Substack. She is an essays editor at Zona Motel.