Recessional

Abstract

Recessional Corey Van Landingham (bio) After the cake—five-tiered, chocolate ganache, complete with actual orchidsatop the fondant—the long buildup to the last last song, the father of the bride slumped—one too many courtyard cocktails—in his chair, and after the pink jasmine, andromeda, the dusty garden roses softeningin a cut-glass vase in a corner of the ballroom. Afterpates de fruits, lemon tartlets. After the toasts. And the dinner served alfresco, underneath tree boughsand bistro lights. After the three-piece band has exhausted its covers, the bride, in her fitted-bodice blush pink gown,declares their exit. The fireworks write their postscript across the sky and not one of us thinks what we look like from above, nor ofthe eleven-vehicle wedding procession delivering the newlyweds to the groom's remote village. [End Page 41] A pilotless plane pauses. One man looks up.We know the rest from headlines. How the attendants leapt from their cars before they caught fire.Broken glass. Scraps of hot metal striking the bride's soft face. Scorched trucks and body parts leftscattered on the road. Seconds later the echo beyond the stone-built houses, the riverbed,the highlands. Yes, one man, the article says, looked up when the familiar hum of the drone—thisis what the sky now sounds like— stopped. Imagine,though, the moment before. The bride's hand on her mother's wet cheek. Keep the groom's son breathing, the truck intact. Poetry says, there is eternity in the moment. But as we with our sparklers light the path for ournew couple to their limousine door, as they raise the windowbehind which they will become invisible, we see only ourselves. "Our art," wrote Petrarch,"is that which makes men immortal through fame." Turning backto gather our summer shawls and high heels [End Page 42] from the dance floor,we recount, already, the day. The bride's smart braids. The ribbonholding each cloth napkin. The balloons rising away from the city. What love poemcould be written when men can no longer look up?In their thank you notes— calligraphed perfectly in plum ink—the bride and groom include a candid photograph for eachattendee. In the moment, we didn't even know we were touching. [End Page 43] Corey Van Landingham Corey Van Landingham is the author of Love Letter to Who Owns the Heavens, forthcoming from Tupelo Press, and Antidote, winner of the 2012 Ohio State University Press/The Journal Award in Poetry. She teaches in the MFA program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Copyright © 2019 Pleiades and Pleiades Press