The groom thought it was July, but
here they come, wings thumping

in veiny drumbeats. Guests on the lawn
cluster like pool balls on baize, stare up

in amazement as the mayflies spawn.
Their gazes? Vertical. The groom’s?

Cross-ways, horizontal toward his bride.
Mayflies descend upon her. Tatterdemalion,

she wears them like a gown. He expects her
to frown, to shout, Get them off me!

like when she begged him to slay bugs
in the apartment they shared, fornicating

there until this very day. Instead, she appears
to allay her own fears: Say, did you know

with air. Mayflies have no need for butts!
The groom wants to shout back, but

his own mouth won’t move. Mayflies
in cold streams feed bass & trout, he wants

to say. That, my dear, is why fisherman
tie flies to resemble them. Some prankster

ties flies like little winged grooms & waves
them before the bridesmaids. Some get hooked.

Some get away. The mayflies carry his bride
astray, above woods, into twilight already

effervescent with stars. The groom knows
in his heart they won’t get far. The mayflies

will die, high over the trees—make the short,
R’ed drop from copse to corpse, sour in its stop,

sharp in its permanence, but the fall of his bride
will not be hard. She will make her way

back to the yard. The groom will take her
to the lake for their honeymoon, to see mayfly

bodies clog the cooling intakes of the nuclear reactor.
They will sing songs above the moonlit water.

The refrain will be plain, bugless, reassuring:
The reception was a disaster. The marriage will be better.