This offering, today, from Sharon Olds'
Blood, Tin, Straw.
The Elopement
It was raining upwards, sideways, each
tree bursting with rain like brilliant
sweat. We stopped at a country store
to ask where we could get married. There were vats
of pickles, barrels of square yellow crackers,
the Prop. gave us the local J.P.'s
number. It was gently misting, in there,
brine and cracker-salt. The J.P. asked
if we'd get married in his church. While he called his minister
I wandered, in the dark, store
air, past the columns of vertebrate tin.
The shelves, the floor, the counters were old
wood, there must have been mice in the building,
rats, a cat, roaches, beetles,
and, in the barrel, whatever makes water
pickle, the mother of vinegar, it was
a spore Eden, a bestiary,
the minister said Yes, come right on over,
but maybe we had been married, there,
by matter, by the pickles, by the crackers, by the balls
of guard-fur, the rats looking away
into the long reaches, like the cows
in the manger, by the creche, though there's always one
who widens her glowing eyes, and gazes--one
rat, transfixed by mortal coupling
grabbed the Dutch Girl cocoa tin in his
arms and spun her in a dervish mazurka,
then all the witnesses waltzed, the Campbell's-soup
twins, the Gerber baby, Aunt
Jemima, Betty Crocker, the Sun Maid
raisin girl, the oats Quaker,
the chef of Cream of Wheat, every
good, mild, family guest
danced at our marriage, cloudy ions in the
cucumber-barrel spiraled, our eggs and
sperm swam in tandem, in water-
ballet, the spores of the sky whirled and
kissed on our wedding day.
