What I loved — besides the volumes
of taffeta on the Korean mother’s dress,
And the fleshy glow of the slightly
older bride,
And the plodding priest with his
fifty mentions of Christ,
And the guests, as various as
petals on all the bouquets,
With their canes, and Ivy ties,
decolletés,
all the accents, the Slavs vodka-
scented, Koreans with a certain
sly detachment,
and the toasts, like in a film,
the miracle of love drifting down —
was the man, out of place like the rest,
telling a bawdy story of standing
at the urinal many weddings ago,
when something drifted from his inner coat pocket
as he stood pissing beside an editor —
his poem, having escaped confinement,
landed in the froth.
The gentle man, already zipped up,
delicately picked the page up by its corner
and published it.