I have become the loving goddess

Golden lady, laughter-loving, poor dove,

sea-foamed one, blonde one, dumb one - 

because it is a wedding I attend

and a wedding wants a blessing. 

I pour the chemicals, gasp, choke, 

regard my husband whose oven

makes rubies and diamonds from coal, 

and bright dawn from dark.

I remove my flame tresses, cook away

my chemical intelligence. Slowly

my hair turns hideous carrot, radioactive yam.

Beauty emerges with a twist of lung,

head dizzy from fumes. This is the birth

of laughter, this golden hue,

this spun metal the color of a wedding ring,

this ray of dawn's hope born from ashes

and cinders, sulking embers. I am reborn,

faint and raw as bleached bone: 

a good omen. Raising high the torch

on hymeneal rites.