The Bride in my Right Thigh Wears a Wolf

hide over her shoulders
as she carries her bride
through the gloom of a blizzard
that snapped to over the stone
church bearing the weight
of pretend. The brides are happier
now that the party was canceled,
the preacher wine drunk
and stinking at the words
he insisted were his care
to finish. The bride listened
out of kindness for drunks
before picking up her wife
to carry her home. The guests
had never arrived, they had never left
their warm domes. Some blamed the old
seer, some blamed the bride
for choosing such a cold happy hour.
In a few years, no one remembered
the shape of her disappointment
when she countered her neighbors
after snowmelt, celebration in her face, hand
in hand with her wife, swollen
with joy only love gives.