The Mistletoe Bride
by Carol Ann Duffy
The December bride who, bored with dancing, skipped from the castle hall to play hide-and-seek, a white bird flickering into the dark...
The groom, who searched each room, calling her name; then the bridal guests, flame-lit, checking the grounds...
The fifty Christmases till a carpenter jemmied an old oak chest; the skeleton with its unstrung pearls, loose emeralds, its rings of diamond, sapphire, gold...
The running feet, the shouting for others to see what he’d seen; mistletoe in the loose bones of a hand...
like love, patiently green.
image: flickr - laura dye
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