Story of a Wedding Day
--for Brenner

And I ask you
of your wedding day.
And I am the illicit lover
in your arms,
savoring
the fall.
Innocence
from impurity,
the tumult is
balanced in silence,
just a moment,
like a boulder
on-end.

I had seen the pictures
of that November day--
her sparrow bones
against the spread
of your thick shoulders.
Her whiteness set off
against the field of your black.
It is a killing tenderness,
the span of your hand
in the small
of her buttoned back.
She flutters into
your solidity--
even in photographs.

I watch your face
as you tell it--
the twist of words
mimicking your expression
as you speak
the details--
of peacocks,
of guests,
of champagne.
Her ghost is the delicate fog
disquieting the memory,
stopping at tables to chat,
raising a glass to her lips,
turning into the daylight,
smiling against the joy.

Mercifully, you omit
the breathing
and the moment
of holding
when she stepped
with hollow-boned grace
to the head of the aisle
and the Nordic blue
of your eyes
devoured
her delicacy
as both you joined.


Meghan Mullaney