Epithalamion in a Minor Key
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Having caught him in a slightAnd thoroughly inconsequential lie,We watched him turn from us and wadeInto a small, elegant cartelOf women beneath a water oakWhere he now smokes a cigarette alone.The evening has the glazed and calmEnameled look of ornamental eggs.Tree branches are laced with paper lanternsAnd necklaces of tiny, ivory lights.Filled water goblets gleam. The bride-to-be,Wearing a lemon cocktail dress and pearls,Seems chiseled from the very sun.We know few people hereAnd find ourselves in conversation withA gas and oil man from Baton Rouge,Two groomsmen and the shy, well-meaning priest,A surgeon from Rhode Island, and thenWe're somehow milling next to him again.He'd like to clarifyA certain thing he may have said before.We wave it off. Don't be absurd.This weekend all our causes are benign.We mingle. We manage to avoidOpinion and belief.Conservative and liberal. Hawk and dove.Big Ten and SEC. No oneSo far as I can tellIs giving anybody griefOver abortion or Afghanistan,Gay marriage or the Fed.We're overly solicitous instead,Accommodating and sarcasm-free. [End Page 31] Nobody scoffs or cracks the sneerThat says, You poor uneducated schmuck,You've swallowed all the propaganda, eh?Miraculously, weFind only pleasantries to sayAbout the long distances we've comeAnd the "picture-perfect" weather.We praise this rented stone estate,Its columns, the Italian marble stairsAnd dazzling cut-glass chandelier.We remark how smitten they both look—The almost bride and nearly groomWe're here to celebrate.Tomorrow in the stained-glass chapel light,Wood polish and the pepper scentOf lilies hanging in the godly air,A few may cry. A fewMay privately supposeThere are no happy endings waiting there.Someone will screw around, or worse,Someone will have to watch the other die.To see them, though, so pleased,So poised, so dashing and so overjoyed,It isn't difficult to thinkThese just may be the seldom twoWho'll never raise their voices in a rageOr covet some lost solitude,Whose gentle, healthy children will obey,Whose mild hearts may, on occasion, drift(As even mild hearts will sometimes do)Though never truly stray.After the psalm and organ-driven hymns,After the homily, the vows, that kiss,Wishing them happiness, if nothing else,We wish them this. [End Page 32]
Daniel Anderson's work has appeared in Poetry, The Kenyon Review, New England Review, The Yale Review, The Hudson Review, Harper's, The New Republic, The Southern Review, The Sewanee Review, The Best American Poetry and Southwest Review among other places. He has published two books of poetry, Drunk in Sunlight (Johns Hopkins University Press) and January Rain (Story Line Press), and edited The Selected Poems of Howard Nemerov (Swallow Press/Ohio University Press). His honors include a Pushcart Prize as well as fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Bogliasco Foundation. He teaches in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Oregon.
