Lilies
Lilies
by Pamela Riley
We got engaged
one dog day afternoon
in the iris garden.
You went down
on both knees,
a gold ring praying
in your pocket
and said you were giving me
one last chance
to compromise.
All I remember was the heat,
the sun paralyzing the sky
and crying because the moment
came without poetry.
We got married in April
when everything was blooming
in tender noises.
I wore white
and carried lilies;
you wore a suit
borrowed from your father.
Just the two of us
joined as less than one,
and god’s anointed
apologizing for the strangers
we left waiting
in the other room.
I like this, for the oppressiveness of the first part: “the sun paralyzing the sky,” her “crying because the moment came without poetry,” and that a marriage proposal would be phrased as “one last chance to compromise.” In the second part I like “just the two of us joined as less than one,” but I don’t understand the ending, unless “the strangers we left waiting in the other room” are the two of them. But then how would the minister or priest, I presume–“god’s anointed”–know that much about their relationship?