She Became Quite Bossy

By Carole Mertz

She became quite bossy when the wedding invitations went out

Orchids ordered, menus planned.

The invited: doctors, lawyers, travelers sea-spanned.

Really, I didn’t know she had so much clout.

Shaking, he pondered the wedding’s cost: 

A gilded hall, the venue, the band queenly commanded. 

Over white linens, must the people shout

in conversations attempted, then abandoned?

She became unduly impatient, ordered her friends about.

The day loomed like an illness, heinous, all to be endured. 

As to the expense—

she was inured.

Barely attending each other for days, lured, he looked wilted, 

and she in a glaze. She became quite bossy when

the invitations went out; 

imperious, she tilted

this way and that. She finally knew

the wedding day’s cost:

her husband, her husband, all love was lost. 

He flew.