​Walking down the aisle
we dreamed.
Wedding guests,
names now in a book:
   sentinels holding
   their peace.
 
     Look, the bride.
     Who designed that gown?
     See her dazzling smile?
     What impeccable style.
     O, her hips swaying side to side:
     Watch her

     stride
        down
           the endless mile―
     Meanwhile
what happened
to our dream,
that poor little thing?
     Someone
     find a groom.

     He mustn't miss
     this new regime
throwing rice across the floor,
scrabbling our bodice,
drawing against the garter 
in the ineluctable place.

We are multi-petaled anemones 
made from plaster of paris
arranged in a Pompeiian vase.
The rituals, our vows―lips
meeting in a seasoned
turnstile kiss―
​
     Weddings
     are for letting go.
Dreams 
disappear 
across the thresholds
we cannot cross.

     Come, ring bearer,
cast these beams 
from our glass eye;
reconcile the fullness
of these times,
the Gentile lie.

     Ah, the altar's
     live-stream
     has gone
     blank.