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Virgil Stone Poem
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.
Copyright © Virgil Stone | Year Posted 2025
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Details |
Virgil Stone Poem
The perfect petals puncture the fabric’s purple-blue,
And silver-platter fins paint the water every hue.
A globed sky has thawed, ripe with pine and sapphire stars—
And the glinted sheen of the oil graze on your lips reminds me who and where you are:
South; below the electric-white moon,
Bright enough to bleach my bones and leave me a fool.
Both sun-blind at midnight, rainbow scales in the night light,
Finding the love in the cracks of your paw—unlimited, yet finite.
Newborn, yet aching, with nothing left to give,
With famine’s touch still singing, but no love to let live.
It was my intention to escape you before we met again,
But the bends of the grizzly river flow, uncaring and unwavered—
And now your soft claws have my head, again wishing to be savored.
Copyright © Virgil Stone | Year Posted 2025
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