Recessional

        After the cake—five-tiered, chocolate ganache, complete    with actual orchidsatop the fondant—the long buildup        to the last

    last song, the father        of the bride slumped—one    too many courtyard cocktails—in his chair, and after the pink    jasmine, andromeda, the dusty

        garden roses softeningin a cut-glass vase in a corner    of the ballroom. Afterpates de fruits, lemon tartlets.        After the toasts.

And the dinner served alfresco,    underneath tree boughsand bistro lights. After the three-piece band        has exhausted    its covers,

        the bride,    in her fitted-bodice blush        pink gown,declares their exit. The fireworks write    their postscript across the sky

and not one of us thinks what we look like    from above, nor ofthe eleven-vehicle wedding procession        delivering the newlyweds    to the groom's remote village.

        A pilotless plane    pauses. One man looks up.We know the rest from headlines.        How the attendants    leapt from their cars before

        they caught fire.Broken glass. Scraps of hot metal    striking the bride's soft face. Scorched    trucks and body parts leftscattered on the road. Seconds later

the echo beyond    the stone-built houses, the riverbed,the highlands. Yes, one man,        the article says, looked up    when the familiar hum

    of the drone—thisis what the sky now sounds like—        stopped. Imagine,though, the moment before. The bride's hand    on her mother's wet cheek.

Keep the groom's son        breathing, the truck    intact. Poetry says, there is eternity        in the moment.    But as we with our sparklers

        light the path for ournew couple to their limousine    door, as they raise the windowbehind which they will become        invisible,

    we see only ourselves. "Our art,"        wrote Petrarch,"is that which makes men immortal    through fame." Turning backto gather our summer shawls and high heels

    from the dance floor,we recount, already, the day. The bride's smart    braids. The ribbonholding each cloth napkin. The balloons        rising away

    from the city. What love poemcould be written when men can no longer        look up?In their thank you notes—    calligraphed perfectly

in plum ink—the bride and groom include    a candid photograph for eachattendee. In the moment,    we didn't even know        we were touching.