Micki Myers

BRIDEZILLA HAS A PLAN - VICTORIA MARIE ALBERT: CHAPEL ROYAL, ST. JAMES'S PALACE 10 FEBRUARY 1840

She knows that if she wants to sleep
          with him, she's got to marry him, first
                    cousin or not. He's as good looking as

any twenty year-old can be, his sideburns
          still a bit thin, but the way his breeches
                    cling more than makes up for that.

Her ladies-in-waiting giggle when he winks
          at them because they've all heard the rumors.
                    And Lord, she wants to sleep with him

more than just about anything else she can imagine,
          more than being Empress of India and all the rubies
                    that can bring her, more than all the tea in China.

She wants this day to be special, a wedding unlike
          anything anyone has ever seen, so to buck tradition,
                    the bride shall be wearing white.

It's a monstrosity of a dress, a skirt so full
          she seems to float down the aisle, but she doesn't
                    care, she's the Queen, and this is Her day.

There's no way she's going to leave a constitutional crisis
          in her wake, thank you very much,
                    everyone scrambling around to find a suitable heir

among the legions of bastards born of actresses and the like.
          No; she plans on being pregnant
                    for the next seventeen years, starting tonight.

When he lifts her veil back to deliver the obligatory kiss,
          she puts her hand to his cheek, closes her eyes,
                    and slips her tongue past his lips.

Micki Myers has been published widely and received three Pushcart Prize nominations. Her first book of poetry, Trigger Finger, won the Pearl Poetry Prize, and her second, It's Probably Nothing..., was recently published by Simon & Schuster. She writes the cookbook blog, Yuckylicious, and can be found online at mickimyers.com.