June 28

fragrant

There are a thousand names for poison—take your pick. How we distrust the clouds
drifting bucolically across a cornflower sky, holding our breath, wary of what’s brewing
behind us, or just around the corner. A friend wrote she never lets her guard down,
girded as she is for disaster to burst through the door. So when the bride and groom
faced each other three days ago and offered an abundance of vows, I shook with worry
that the words they said—so fragrant with feeling—would sour in time, haunt the mouths
that dared speak them. Then a sweat gathered at my knees, and tiny winged creatures
discovered the bare skin of my shoulders, and my hands were suddenly too busy
swatting at flies and swiping at my legs to hold back whatever might come, and then
Jacob and Lizzie were kissing with such certainty, none of us could take our eyes off them.