Hats On for the Happy
We couldn’t go in person
since the car had grown moss inside.
So we sat on Zoom in Birmingham,
between a Dublin screen
and one in the south of Chicago.
We were silent, serious. Our separated frames fused
to witness the in-person
rejection of otherlessness. Two Canadians
entered the gallery, laughing under starry pointed hats.
Were they suggesting
we far-flung wedding guests, fixed
to the wall, watching and waiting, might have a party
of our own? Dublin man
fetched himself a sunhat. He handled
his brim a lot. I left the screen and found my bonnet –
orange felt, with a yellow
flower, in a cupboard I never use.
The Canadians waved me back to my chair.
The Chicago Mississippi-
Bankside lady pierced the screen
with solemnity – who would not be solemn
at the imminence of such
vows – then disappeared behind
clouds of simulated background. She came back
Queened, in a boat of black
hat, that was tulled and beaded
and pinned tight to her slowly unsombreing stare.
Our four tiny head-high squares
of life sparkled over the grey room. We
made champagne-rich speeches about commitment
to wear and be worn by, to cover
and to be covered by. My partner was bare-
headed. He never wears a hat, only a sun visor
that shades his sight
when the heat-sapped tryst of eye
and sky is painful. The bride folded her veil back
into a hood. The groom
meditated on her draped hair
and then on her naked face. Say it, whispered each
brimmed and muted heart.
Feature Image: Daniele Idini