I.
By the time the wedding ended
Skylar was over it.
Seeing Doug under pressure
had reduced her blue
liquid eyes to a thick
syrup ready to fall
into the repose of marriage.
Above him,
the wind tugged violently
at the cloth firmament
pinned by a phalanx
of alabaster spears –
so subtle a struggle
that no one would eulogize
their nameless
valor.
Pearls hung in her hair
like daytime stars.
Bathed and jeweled
she was as clean as an angel.
Doug secretly
worried that beneath
that billowed fog
which rolled
from under her corset
was a waterfall
he would dissolve in.
The artificial kiss
had felt like skin under gold.
The watchers gasping
from on high
as Doug reached within himself
to unearth their intimacy
in this backyard colosseum.
His heart roared like a lion
even now as his mouth
mimicked a hyena’s laugh
at Skylar’s drunk uncle’s buffoonery.