Tuesday Poem: Two Ships Passing

Jilting

In her exuberance to impress him,
the bride wears a hat, festooned
with feathers, and flowers, and fruit,
so tall it keeps her from walking
through the door of the church.
She gazes vacantly down the cool
dusk of an aisle she cannot
negotiate, its flickering
bank of candles like little
voices urging her to go
where she cannot go.

As she tilts this way and that
in the wind she looks like
a stranded boat at the top of
the steps, sending out a mayday
to the groom, but he’s no sailor.

He’s too busy accounting
for the white carpet, the flowers,
the organist in the choir loft
waiting for his cue, all that it’s
cost him to get here, all the little
adjustments he'll have to make.

When he finally spies her,
she is hopelessly storm-tossed,
a calamity filling the doorway
with her terrible fashion sense,
a heedless grandiosity.

His heart is an iceberg.
He hopes she’ll soon grow tired ,
and sink out of sight, as he stands,
on his widow’s walk of an altar,
waving goodbye.