Swan Wedding Poem by Tresha Faye Haefner

See the bride turn into a swan.
Her neck sliding out of the satin dress, a waterfall rising
up from light.
Her eyes glaze over the heads of visitors,
her tongue extended like an obsidian fountain
from the black spigot of her parted beak.
Look how she walks, spreading
broken egg shells among the roses.
Their insides roll, shimmer, rock backwards spilling
the secret of love.
Look how she scythes through the lawn, loosening feathers
among the jasmine,
how far she ballets,
over the broken skulls of her fathers,
the crippled hands of her ladies in waiting.
Queen of birds. The look illuminates us, like lemon
slipped into a glass of vodka.
In her dress, made of bird call and clouds,
she can see beyond death.
Over the canopy a blossom of mock orange
falls. A leaf remembers
to tremble. The groom straightens perfect
in her sight. An egg. A silver
fly swallowed down the gullet. A tree.
The mouths open like water lilies.
If you smash her open now,
she will escape.