"Wedding Night"
by MK Crowe

Wedding Night

A warm night in ‘59:

all the champagne popped all the cake eaten
gifts unwrapped
guests gone home

Maggie,
(a chain smoking
22 year old virgin)
sits on the bed facing her groom
(just a few years older but white-haired since the war) frozen in fear, heart
thumping like a rabbit’s leg

she says, “Richie,
I’m hungry,”
though they both knew she wasn’t
“won’t you get me a cheeseburger?”

A first test.
Dutifully he leaves,
Knowing he’ll return to her still body
feigning sleep

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MK Crowe is a poet based in Queens, NY. She graduated from NYU in 2022 with a degree in English & American literature with a concentration in creative writing. Her work has appeared in Rookie, Hooligan, and Dazed. When not writing poems, MK can be found reading tarot, learning Irish, and listening to her friends play music.

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