New Hampshire Suite Continued

II.

The hotel is host to a wedding ceremony, this last

Quarter of Saturday. We notice, in the morning,

The wife-to-be by the indoor pool, engaged

In polish of her finger nails, powder

Around her neck, scattered, dusty, like a puff

Of pollen. Her eyelashes

Stiff with black mascara, cheeks

Ripened with rouge, she is clothed

In a wrap of silk hemmed at the seams with

Chrysanthemums, asters, golden sequins. 

In a matter of hours, she has become

A catalog bride, her Prince

Outside, standing on the terrace, awaiting her

Rehearsed walk down the aisle; family, friends,

Loved ones, nervously eager for the pastor’s

Impersonal pronouncement. You notice her,

A few feet away, her head, now contained in

A mesh of veil, her fingers curled in a half-circle

Around a slim bouquet of rose. Your face, I see,

Is a highway of delight, your own cheeks, flushed

With excitement for the wife-to-be, thinking

About thresholds of journeys, possibilities, maybe

Even our own matrimony –

While I sit, frozen, on a pale cushion

Dressed in chintz, imagining, two meaty orioles,

Flying into a cage, being locked in,

Slowly, asphyxiating.