After The Wedding Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

After a Wedding


After the wedding when the happy couple
stood on the old church steps to have their
picture taken and a throng of people where
jousting to be in the frame too, I walked
around in the church and found in a corner
a white but dusty marble Virgin Mary.

Her eyes were demurely downcast: I said:
“We’re alone you can open your eyes now.”
Was it just my imagination, caused by my
longing to believe, that I saw an eyelid flutter
and a half smile play upon cold, dusty lips?
….Pale as limestone I rejoined the throng.