Prelude #9: On The Ring Finger of the Happy Bride’s Slender, Long Right Hand, by Maya Bernstein

Jewish Wedding, by Charlotte Salomon (Germany) 1940-42

 
Prelude #9: On The Ring Finger of the Happy Bride’s Slender, Long Right Hand 
 
Franziska Grunwald Salomon , Charlotte’s Mother; Berlin, 1916
 
Charlotte, I got married in my grandmother’s wedding dress.
My mother wore it at her wedding too. Its creamy
hue like spoiled milk. In our happiness
 
we added a bustle. The rest was perfect, the dress-
maker said, needed just a few new seams.
I got married. My grandmother was gone, but her dress
 
seeped into my skin, my arms became sleeves. They pressed
flowers into my hands. They said it fit me like a dream.
The color—enchanting, nothing spoiled. What is happiness?
 
They stuck pins in my belly. My mother was depressed,
thinking of her mother. After the German Empire registry
official placed the ring on my finger, I got married in that wedding dress,
 
cutting the same figure they did, in satin distress,
singing “We twine for thee the maiden’s wreath.”
I believed I would find sweet milk. It seemed like happiness.
 
I believed I could escape. I believed I could be free. I careened
towards my husband, glided down the aisle like a queen.
I got married in my grandmother’s wedding dress,
a creamy stain of spoiled milk, a train of unhappiness. 
 
Maya Bernstein
 
Maya Bernstein is a recent graduate of Sarah Lawrence College's MFA program. Her writing has been published in Allium, By The Seawall, and Pensive Journal, amongst other publications, and her first collection is There Is No Place Without You (Ben Yehuda Press, 2022). Learn more about her and her work at mayabernstein.com