Because I Was Working on Fat Tuesday

for Anna

She had gone for me. The trip, long,

but worth every last beveled bead

she brought back to us, the fearful.

I had only heard that men, before marriage,

were stabbed in between two mattresses.

The dead don’t stick out so much there.

My strand, purple, was the first she caught.

I thumbed each plastic bead, hoping to burst

some magic secret she had found while gone.

During one of the parades, with alcohol

running through her smallish body,

she told me she danced out of her shirt.

Because I was working on Fat Tuesday,

I watched revelers on CNN, online,