cold feet

I will don my white dress tomorrow,
secretly, until the evening bell chimes
signaling the start of the ball.
I wonder if it will fit:
the couturier did not see
two peanut butter sandwiches a day coming
when she made the adjustments.

And I will have to walk
amid all the well-dressed people;
and in the bejeweled
dainty silver shoes I've hesitantly picked out,
I am bound to falter
and fall flat on my face
in front of two hundred or so guests,
more than half of whom
I do not really know.

Once it is all over,
I would have been seen by all of them
and the secret would be no more,
and the girl playing dress-up
in the white dress will be immortalized
in photographs, bound to haunt me
for the rest of my life.

Something is bound to go wrong.
But I must be careful
not to miss a step.