Your eyes speaking your vows, white linen
unwinding ahead of us, shining, 
parquet laid on a lawn under old poplars, 
fragile white lilies and fat waxen tapers, 
a toast from my father furloughed from cancer, 
a white-plumed pen and a gilt-edged guest book, 
your rented tails, my off-the-rack dress 
strewn with fake seed pearls, the tumult of joy 
in my morning mirror. Cousins romancing 
maiden aunts—dancing, people who never danced—
happiness taut in yellow-and-white stripes 
against blue-sky, and spring still half on the spool. 
The runner ahead, unwinding its shining, 
and behind us, the shining unwound.