I wish the bride were blushing,
but her face is pale, as she looks
at the perfect sunshine, as she looks
at her groom, whom she refused to see
till today.

Today she will be married,
I can not give her any promises,
but the sun does shine bright,
merrily, and the sky seemed to
make her deepest worries careen.

Pale, her face, like a ghost,
afeared someone would pass,
but they watch in dazedly peaceful silence,
And so the ducks keep out of the air.

Nervousness, the flower girls weren’t given bread,
they wanted to throw crumbs into the water for
the ducks to gnaw upon, but one couldn’t get pieces of flour
on her veil. And until the vows were said, completed,
soon over, soon finished,
the little girls could throw all the bird seed,
to please the ducks they called their friends.

On the bridge she will be married
the priest will bless their names at the top,
and therefore I hope the truest vision
encapsulates my predictions.

Under the bridge swelter two pools of water,
and sprays of water come up. Around the duck pond
there is a side path, where the guests wait, eagerly,
for the bride and groom’s wedding cake.

Curious ones will gather on the hill behind, or on the
gazebo. No sound will they mimic, for things are
found in quiet.

The bride, she makes her footing, on the other side of the
pond, at the entrance near the road, walking on her way
to meet him at the altar, but watching in a way,
to be certain that her aunt is breathing. Her aunt is ready
for leaving, and from her pale face, the veil hangs down
closer, as though a branch filled with water,
bursting her eyes, almost bursting, with hope clenching
tightly, to her solemn breast; the bride hopes her aunt will live
just one bit longer. The wedding had to be moved
for the aunt to see the girl marry, the tube that draped her lung
long, could not supply more air than a dying body can muster
thinning breaths.

Pray the sunny day will keep her close from dying.
God, hold that last little thread from snapping,
Pray, after the wedding ends, after she is given
wedding cake, for a breath longer, breathing ‘till
more breaths are no longer feasible,
and some more time
before she has to pass.

Where is the ring to put on his finger,
she’ll take his name you know,
be leaving behind her old life,
as her aunt decides to go.

Her aunt took care of the bride,
and kept her in her house,
home, she sacrificed everything, when
she was the only one protecting
the girl, before she was a bride.

Being once a little girl,
the aunt took her along to sit while
she worked, as she was kept
from the neighborhood.

Mopping, scrubbing, brooms, floors,
vacuuming, on her hands and knees:
no more partying for her, for she had a little
girl, and it was her most wonderful
blessing. She could not have kids,
she liked no men, and had no luck with
the things she found.

Growing up, going to school,
All mundane, filled with thrills
and chores. Nothing special happened,
until her mother came back
demanding her baby girl.

The aunt knew where the girl would be,
her mother was almost pitiful
enough to mourn for,
and her mother could not keep a house,
and never gave up, like the aunt did,
on finding a suitable partner
(That never worked out).

“Let me have my little girl,
Let me have my little girl!”
No, I have kept her longer than you
would have, I have all the paperwork,
the custody rights, the little girl,
she stays with me and no longer
will she ever be your little girl.

The little girl, 11 or 12,
Wanted her mother again,
And fought her aunt
tooth and nail
to be with her mother again.
The aunt decided to relent,
she gave into the 11-year-old’s
wishes, and the girl went to
live with her mother.

“One month, two months,
she will be back.”

She lasted three,
And came back.
She would’ve had to change
schools, and summertime
kept her mother too close,
and the ‘daddy,’ as he insisted,
much closer.

Now she was back, and she’d
finish school, inconspicuously,
walking across the aisle,
or the pond, that her groom
insisted upon, where they met eight years
before; she still in nursing school,
he a broker. Throwing bread,
bobbing her legs, she took the same
bench, he gave the same
smile, “What kind of bread do you throw,
White, rye brown?
You throw like a granny;
throw lightly, and it will hit the pond,
or hit somewhere the ducks will tear it
apart, and shred it to crumbs.
The birds are contented with
shredding gluten.”

They were in love, they met
every sunday ‘till fall,
then soon they’d meet for
coffee, and later coitus,
and intimacy, and love.

Do you take this man
to be your husband?
“I do, I do.”
Do you take this woman
to be your lawfully wedded wife?
He looked into her eyes, to find
one more regret, and stomach his
vows: “I do, I do, and you:”

The veil is cast, the bride is kissed,
the husband is happiest, or the *****’ll
make him contented with the rest of his
life, I am not worried that this wedding
will end badly, but paint yourself
the pictures of their hands holding in the
sun of a storm.

Is she alive, the aunt the wife was worried about?
Instead of rushing to the car, she sits on the bench
beside her. Was she breathing, or living,
and not dying, and seeing, what would be her only
daughter (her mother is probably over, the next city over,
lying around, nothing from nothing, nothing to show
and nothing to be but a will of the wisp. If God doesn’t
blow her away, then like he will take the aunt away,
and she flies away, as she is released with angel wings,
as she is released into her comfort,
and bodies that are rampant,
disease flung and broken, choking life away,
she died within the day. She saw her own one
away, tonight, while the once-little girl dances,
and let her be sentimental, because she is death;
The niece is now dancing with her prince,
and he holds her tightly, she mourns over that devotion
her aunt had given to her, when no one else could ever
give a ****).