Wedding Day

The morning glories the neighbor called invasive are ready
for a new logic, the sky deepening into Iris blue.

The market has not yet swayed the landlord, the old house
not yet gone the way. Next door, the beautiful baby

tilts toward the first muggy drops as her mother hands
her over, running to pull pink slips from the line,

whispering, like a woman in a movie, baby here comes
a summer storm-even the plastic yard chairs prickle

in planetary anticipation. When Jacob emails to offer
oysters left from a wedding, I walk to his porch and kneel

to lift them from the cold mouth of the icebox. The town
dreams of lemons and lace, of cocktail sauce and a bride

and groom readying out into the institution. Clouds
swollen to capacity; the tall white yuccas flaming upward

like candles. Something about abundance will always
overwhelm. Once home, the briny shells stay untouched.

–Sarah Edwards

Sarah Edwards is an editor in Durham, North Carolina. She has fiction and poetry published in Subtropics, The Stinging Fly, Annulet, The Yale Review, Brink, Ninth Letter, The Southern Humanities Review, Joyland, and The Carolina Quarterly, among others.