wedding day

a girl and a  boy,

smoking
outside the courthouse.
goose bumped
with an april chill,

in their borrowed coat

and dress,
leaning
into one another
with scarecrow
faces,
limbs like
crooked branches,
thin and pale
as birch.

dizzy

from pre-celebration

the night before.

in minutes
the clerk will
pronounce them
man and wife,
before sending them
both out
into a new day
of staggering light.