Queer Brides at the Altar

Girl in White, Girl in Red: a wedding melody in poetry

She waits crowned in bridal illusion under glowing cobalt fruit, twigs ribboned together beneath cotton-colored clouds.

Harmonies tangle — hollow echoes carrying centuries of tradition: Mendelssohn’s wedding march, a high-tech rebirth on electric speakers.

Sudden blustering — lightning forecast creating ricochets of thunder ripping through cascades of rain hailing Captain Noah

until she stops, takes a deep breath to tame her wild self and tells it, Max-like, to be still.

Floods recede — music chimes. a woman emerges, her candy-apple hair crowned in roses and lace, facing the bride waiting for her cocooned in swathes of white.