The Hopkins Review 10.3 (Summer 2017): 384-385.
WEDDING WIND
Beyond the pines, which hid, except for the chimney,
a closed-off-season beachside taverna,
from up on the slope where, relics ourselves,
we lodged in a derelict windmill,
the blue looked firm enough to float a rock
without a ripple of worry. Even so,
my gaze, as though white-robed, a savior,
skimmed to the boat in the cove,
then stepped from the solid blue of the bay
to shelves of bluer schist, a pilgrim,
on up to the whitewashed church on its finger of rock
to exchange with the icon a kiss
for a healing look from the Virgin. Wind
by evening. We took our sunset walk
around the wind-chopped cove,
the sailboat-pitching cove,
along the cliffside path
despite not only the wind but also the crowd
thronging the church. A wedding, yes.
Among the dusty cars that choked the lot
was one in a wind-whipped frenzy
of streamers. The spirit aroused, of course, in us
a vision of ours. By ten, electric guitars
were yowling. The pines—were they dancing with wind
or light from the woken taverna? The wind
swelled with the odor of meat fat sizzling on coals;
the taverna was smoking. Or wasn’t it thunder
that shook us, that fiendish, vibrating bass,
and cats, the feral ones fed by our landlord
to battle the vipers, serpents of lightning?
In bed as though on board,
we drowsily hoisted a sail
too suddenly pregnant with wind—our rope-burned hands
like urgent semaphores, like creaking blades
up on the slope conducting the wind.