Le mariage

It rained on their wedding day. What did the bride wear? What did the groom wear? Only the bride can tell. What did the guests wear? Four pichets of rosé. We downed them, our throats slick with gimlets and beer. Before the bride and the groom stood the mayor, and upon the mayor’s chest flapped his sash, red, white, and blue. Four flower girls danced in a circle, and in the church yard, two little pigs turned on their spits.

Like many marriages, this one required the bridging of oceans, the conquering of recent histories, and a resolution towards future circumstance. But if the groom held fear, or the bride any grief for her father’s adieu, it didn’t show. Perhaps they know something I don’t know. Beneath their soaring union lie certain memories, as paper lanterns set aflame in the night sky, and chance leaving them wet on their wedding day.