The Bride

Summer has emptied its purse,
shaken out the last
hairpin of its treasure.

Lilacs darken, a lace
of nails, and the mind
at evening is a knot growing worse.

This was a day lost, a day for herself, working
among the catbriers
and bittersweet, sipping at a solitude,

swaying on an upper bough of the world,
a ragged
tongue of weed in a fluency of sky,

a movement of air across the shape of her,
the threads, the worried pall
and everything given now
...