Wedding Pantoum ~ Pat Fargnoli

 

A wedding in the restaurant’s small garden.
Two flutes play a bagatelle,
I am at a plastic table for one
and I am not part of the occasion

Flutes play a bagatelle–
the musicians are filling the garden.
Not part of the occasion
I have simply stopped there for lunch

as the musicians are filling the garden
with music that lifts like the wind off the patio.
I have simply stopped there for lunch.
Asters and chrysanthemums on the low wall

bend with music that lifts like wind off the patio.
The society bride arrives in a red jaunty cart
with her bouquet of asters and chrysanthemums–
the horse as white as the wedding cake.

the high-class bride arrives in a red jaunty cart.
I order a Bud Light and wonder
at the horse, white as the wedding cake.
Why didn’t I order a Bloody Mary?

I order another Bud Light and wonder
about the two snooty women at the next table.
Why didn’t I order a Bloody Mary?
The waitress takes my second chair away.

About the two women at the next table:
they are sipping their Bloody Marys.
The waitress takes my second chair away
and I am naked somehow– alone

and not sipping a Bloody Mary
at the damn white plastic table
where I feel naked and lonely
in the garden of the Jared Coffin House

At the white plastic table
in Nantucket, where there is a wedding
in the garden of the Jared Coffin House
I rise from sun and beer to go back on the ferry.

In Nantucket where there is a wedding,
From the white plastic table for one
I rise sun and beer dizzy for the late ferry.
The wedding  continues in the small garden.