June in Maine is for Weddings and Allergies
For David, the one other single person in this fucking town

The two of us are bitter, phony newlyweds
every Saturday night. We act like a couple
of chain-smoking nightmares, haunt
the door of the Five Guys on Fore Street.

Scowl at the flocks of stilted bridesmaids
stumbling along: Sashed seagulls, backwards
legs. Laughable heels glass-fragile, toes
catching on cobblestones. We are kicked
off the patio when the flock comes
in to feed so we drive to the lighthouse. Blast
every song about mariticide we can find.

Smash beer bottles, call them champagne.
Name the shards boy in black and lady in red in
turn. Scatter them as we speed up
the coast. Two maniacs cackling at the thought
of bloody-footed tourists. We are the unwed parents
of the next generation of sea glass, another round
of frosty white earrings to be worn on big days.

The sting of the ones who would not settle
for us is not smooth, not for all the salt and rice
we grind along their edges. These two will not age
to our kind of bitter, phony, gift-shop perfection.
They are something thicker, yellow and sour
congealing in our lungs and our throats.

We light another cigarette, supposing we could
smoke them out. Knowing full well who will catch
the bouquet and who will beg for their burial.

The lighthouse bellows at the brides across the bay. We cannot
scream along; our sinuses are full of hate and pollen and nothing.
We gasp constantly to keep from embarrassing ourselves.

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more of Ellyn’s work here.