A bride wears a train
of three thousand
peacock plumes
She walks down the aisle
like a planet
trailing her seas
every wave an eye
shivering with the memory
of the display
how the trees turned
to watch as the bird
raised the fan of his tail –
emerald forests
bronze atolls
lapis islands
every eye
a storm
held in abeyance
Pascale Petit is a French-born British poet. Her seventh book, Mama Amazonica, won the 2018 Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize. Tiger Girl (Bloodaxe) is due to be published in September 2020.
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This article appears in the 03 Jun 2020 issue of the New Statesman, We can't breathe