They hold one another with their forearms–
two old birds–the humerus of their wings
pinned by age at their sides.
A judge pronounced the couple one,
though so they'd been some fifty years:
snow geese, wing on wing.

As the shutter snaps, a small room of hands
applaud or fold into themselves like feathers:
an act of civil disobedience,
because they understand life
can feel borrowed, and waiting can get old.
With judge and mayor and staff they rise,
wing above wing,
and deflect the wind of resistance–
their smiles in fragments, their eyes askew,
like ice giving way to the sun, their
feathered breasts full with tindery breath
as they fly across the blue.

Sarah Zale