Tonight's Poet Corner: When We Are Married

When We Are Married
by Belinda Roddie

When we are married, we will
paint the aisles with yellow rose petals,
and, when the light becomes white gold,
the ribbons can be strung, like
sun beams wrapped in crisp, clean paper.
When we are married, our mothers

will hold hands and share tissues,
and our fathers will toast to our future
and drink heavily to their pasts. Our sisters,
too, will cry, though the warmth of an October
morning still clinging to summer will soothe
the aching bones of celebration.

When we are married, I will place
a new ring beside your seaside one,
the one that was a little too big when first
slipped against your knuckle by
the San Francisco skyline. You've resized
it by now. It fits like a dream. And my rings,

too, will sit together like lovers having just met.
Yes, hello. Very nice to meet you. We are here
due to romantic circumstances, are we not? Then
let us make the most of it, silver and gold - green,
red, blue, and purple on the scattered spectrum,
as the sky, too, witnesses two people,
out of billions and billions,
becoming one.