Wedding on the Hillsborough River

There was the murmur of too quick rainfall.
There was stone on pocketed stone,
bride & chicken in a clover field at standoff.
More even. But who could be trusted with whole truths.
Here the bride’s skirts grow more & more tulle
every time she clinks a glass, adjusts a ring.
The poignancy was over—at a distance, at least—
A thousand mosquitoes
                                      abandoned the jacaranda;
the bees already gone for weeks.
 
 
 
 

Jessica Guzman Alderman is a Florida native. Her work has appeared in Barely South Review and Sleet, among others.