Ceremony in the Park

The poet in a sweat suit, scraggly beard,
jogging in the park. Spring. The bride
hacking and coughing, running late.
The day undecided
between rain and sunshine.
Mauricio, the groom's friend, serenades
on the clarinet.
His niece jilted the groom a year ago.
He feigned insanity, wrote poems to her
from the psych ward.
He loved the bruise on her neck
made by her viola.
It's raining again.
Everyone running for the trees.
The groom looks at his watch,
talks with the poet,
tells him how fortuitous it is
that he happened by.
The vagabond poet
whose first chapbook
the groom had read in high school,
A Thousand Smiling Cretins.
He bought it at his hometown's first head shop.
The sun appears, so does the bride,
with an entourage
of soggy daughters drying out.
The poet straddles a park bench, scribbles
something in a notebook during the ceremony.
The groom considers this a blessing.