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At 13, I used old tissue paper
	to craft my best friend her wedding veil—
	a drapery, thrown together in a flurry,
	taping together parchment scraps, fragile and pale.

I ripped my old notes to craft her a crown,
to set atop her wind-braided brown mane.
The night before, I spun a construction paper bouquet
that, by four that evening, had wilted away.

She did not want to marry, so we chased her in our childish way,
	laughing and breathless, the sky raw and filled with embers.
	The grass, like hay, yellowed as the heat stitched our skin—
 	We and our bride lay spry, soaked in our own September dew.

Under the mess of matted curls, over those childish features,
I saw the rouge appear from running around the bleachers.
Pink with exhaustion, we found a blink of shade under the slender web
of branches, meeting the boy with a smile as soft as the leaves—gentle and tender.

From the dying sycamore, we conjured white arches,
	took the paper rings I had learned to fold.
	In the marshes, we cleaned our muddy shoes,
	and the boy in the collared shirt took her hand to hold.

After, in the fifteen minutes left of our feast on the golden sun,
 we spent our time losing all that we had in the mud—
 our knees sinking into the moist earth, searching for bugs.

Our parchment flowers—crumpled.
 Two paper rings—lost in a stumble.
   And her veil—taken by the last mumble of summer.

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