Spring Brides

by Erika Seay

The gardenias in the day garden
demand your approval.

They are beautiful in white
and their scent travels through the grass

with the sun slanting down like a wish.

The garden parades them, glossy
as pearls, all season and through summer

before the wind lifts each bloom

and each bloom disappears at the first snap of ice—
leaving a stem

choked into a depression in the dirt,
invisible

as the air under the bride’s veil
being lifted and thrown back.


ERIKA SEAY is an MFA student at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. Her work has appeared in 32 Poems and elsewhere.