poem

Annie Freud Bujold

She marries him in a ‘marriage blanc’
so that he can get a work permit.
He is an intellectual in disguise
and there is every kind of impediment:

the ambitious local cop in dark glasses
and leather jacket, determined to hound them,
her saucy younger sister, the absurd mother
giving a huge white wedding nobody wants.

At forty, she is ravishing in a haggard way
and he looks seedy with his too-long hair;
there are some good jokes about lonely, frightened
people trapped in forced proximity:

I know this place is a mess, but don’t touch anything.
I know where everything is. The cafetiere is complicated.
Love prevails in the end. We never see them
in bed and they only ever kiss at the wedding.