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.