In The Bosom Of The Marriage God Poem by Bernard Henrie

The rain stopped and my wedding day
turned clean as a starfish.

I borrowed a suit and a best man,
the Zephyr wind reddened my nose.

Guests dismounted from cabs, women
teetered on high heels; rental chairs
wheeled by.

The little church filled with us.

Banana yellow were the flowers peeping
over pots.

Biarritz sashayed among frankincense
trees. Tulle hoops, a veil skimmed her
peach tan. Black hair over a strapless
white gown; exposed clavicle bones
opened gravely like a child butterfly.

She read a letter in Arabic to her
mother. I spoke 13 memorized words,
the aged aunt cried.

I ate sashimi cuttle fish, a coral
colored sherbet too sweet, I wanted
a whisky.

She put her hand in mine, no bigger
than a wren. I could feel her tremble.

A sentimental favor penned on her coat
flew away; wind through an open car
window made mimeograph copies of her hair.

We raced to the dock and faced a growling
green sea, she wrote a poem:

The unruly ocean drifts and piles itself
from the azurine depths up toward
the clairvoyant moon.
At last we cling together
like winter cherries talking as they fall.