Wedding Party
Gay Brewer
The source of his withdrawal became
anger, and this angered him further.
She had given up being pleasant,
returned the silence she was offered
until it defined a space
to accommodate them both.
The light outside was unnaturally
bright, then brighter and he thought
that he might enter it, hugging
the wing, and would not at all mind
leaving this life. But later,
as the airplane trembled
in descent toward their city, he
recognized his deathwish
as conceit. He did not want pain,
he was afraid of dying.
He felt his mind turning in the
silent space, reaching furtively
sideways, yet the anger remained
on his chest like a block of stone.
He could not get around it.
She had had him remove his
iced bottles from the bathroom sink;
those pantyhose soaked for hours.
It is always something you care
for, he thought, and truth is truth
whether I am a bastard or not.
He left the party early to make her
pay, then lay sweating in the
hot bed. These temperatures were
ungodly. This fucking cheap hotel.
The veins in the bride's bare legs.
His face hurt from smiling.
At their home, the baby birds
he enjoyed were gone into the world.
She has made me miss them as well.
