Wedding Party
by Larry Pike
Casual grips on longnecks,
fast, loose dances,
delights among merry friends--
promise of youth rising like light
fog hovering nearby over cool grass.
Let them have this.
Nothing tonight will
linger. Soon enough
bride and groom will know
a distant vantage, hold tighter to
their claim to love. Unable to stop
themselves, in middle age
they’ll raise like tonight’s toasts
questions that will hang
dense and damp on their bones,
loll longer on their lips than this
evening’s laughter. Did we live?
At least not waste much of what life
we had? Their quiet answers will be
little light in another fog.
fast, loose dances,
delights among merry friends--
promise of youth rising like light
fog hovering nearby over cool grass.
Let them have this.
Nothing tonight will
linger. Soon enough
bride and groom will know
a distant vantage, hold tighter to
their claim to love. Unable to stop
themselves, in middle age
they’ll raise like tonight’s toasts
questions that will hang
dense and damp on their bones,
loll longer on their lips than this
evening’s laughter. Did we live?
At least not waste much of what life
we had? Their quiet answers will be
little light in another fog.
Larry Pike’s poetry has appeared in a variety of publications, and is forthcoming in Saint Katherine Review, Cape Magazine, Amethyst Review, and Poetry and Places. His collection "Even in the Slums of Providence" will be published by Finishing Line Press in October. He lives in Glasgow, Kentucky.