Here we come, world, June 6th, 2015

In her right hand she clutches red and purple
wildflowers, her long flaxen hair tumbling
from its bun, her slender fingers laced
in his burly fingers, trying to knit one
understanding between them as they run
on a white-sand California beach
toward the camera, toward me, who
once taught them how metaphor can snag
and hold the world.

                                             Now I hold this picture
of them leaving their wedding guests behind
as they run into their future, past
the camera, toward the sun, he in his boutonniere,
his dress shoes, the suit he’ll wear just once. Her
wedding frock, demure, her waist much smaller
than my thumb which holds their picture.

The wonder: she is beaming down at her elegant
white heels as they kick up the gleaming beach.
How difficult to run through sand! How easy
they make it look. In spite of all the proofs we know
against love, look how they fly in a solar wind of joy,
the two of them, a metaphor that’s been set free.