Before the Wedding

MALLORY YOUNG

April 2, 2020

It’s not the first time we’ve been alone together

although we’ve never thought to question whether

this sense of solitude was shared.

We just assumed that loneliness was paired

with heartworn silences somehow.

The difference is that all the world is now

sharing our united isolation,

locked in common bonds of separation—

sequestered here in our connected rooms

like, just before the wedding, brides and grooms.

MALLORY YOUNG is an English professor at Tarleton State University. Though she presumes to write occasional poems, most of her recent publications focus on women’s literature and popular culture. She would like to stress that while she sympathizes with the persona of this poem, she is not herself the speaker.