I missed the wedding,
The entire thing,
The entire 15-minute wedding,
Because I couldn’t find the banquet hall
Where it was located
In my own hometown
And no one else knew either
At the gas stations that were within a mile of it,
Out in the country.
.
I got there at 5:15 —
A cloudy, generally pleasant day in July
With light rain.
.
The time that I got there
Was exactly concurrent with
The opening of the bar,
Which we were all free to indulge in
Limitlessly and
At our own discretion.
.
At one point I caught sight of this
Attractive redhead I’d worked with
At a sports bar in town,
Me cooking and she waiting tables.
.
I couldn’t catch her eye but
After the meal and the bussing
She seemed to be standing by herself
So I went over and said hi to her.
.
I’d noticed that
She’d been there with a boyfriend
From the activities before
But at this moment she was standing
By herself.
.
I got a friendly greeting from her —
A smile,
And eyes that were lit up,
Sort of like a reference back to the
Volcano of elation
I assume
To
Exist
Up in the sky, somewhere.
.
We made small talk and
When I asked her if she still worked at Brothers
She went “Uhh,”
And waited like five seconds,
Before answering “No,”
With hilarious deliberateness and
An intense look into my eye,
As if she’d just come upon
A significant revelation.
.
At one point I got a finger against my chest
With eye contact and conversation and I thought,
There’s no way this is really happening.
.
Plus she’s with a boyfriend.
.
Well I did have on my $20 straw Fedora
That I’d got at a 7/11 one summer,
So you can kind of see how
Things were working out.
.
I picked the right time to break off the conversation
And said “see ya,”
Strolling then back to my mom’s table with
I’m sure an extra bounce in my step.
.
When I saw the redhead later she was flushed,
Sitting with the boyfriend which was this huge dude,
Outside the stoop of the wedding at about nine,
Maybe waiting for a ride, or something
Along those lines.
.
It was going to be a long day the next day,
For sure,
I got the idea.
.
The wedding was great —
Or, I should say, the reception,
Which as I alluded to,
Lasted three hours and 45 minutes,
In comparison with the
Actual wedding,
Which lasted 15 minutes
(All of which yes I did miss for reasons partially my own fault).
.
I’d drank two Beck’s on the way up
And I had one left in the car and I figured,
Well,
It’s about time to get back to that.
.
I’d said hi to the bride
At one point, who was my cousin,
Said hi to the groom, with whom
I got along real well,
Greeted any number of relatives cordially and
In general found it a near flawless experience,
For all intents and purposes.
.
That redhead girl I saw was in nursing,
Which she’d turned to after waiting tables
At our bar.
.
Medical clinics and oncological units
Flooded our town like wildfire and
At weddings, the spiritual formality was scant and the
Alcohol consumption rampant.
.
Nobody asked why.
.
Nobody had to.