In the Honeymoon Period, by Stephanie DuPont

Rubens and Isabella Brant in the Honeysuckle Bower, by Peter Paul Rubens (Flanders) 1609

​In the Honeymoon Period
 
We’re not quite strangers,
and not friends, but I’m in 
the garden of someone else’s life,
We all picture ourselves
beneath someone else’s honeysuckle bower--
wrapped in fabric thick enough
to soften what it means to love this long.
Her neck held in ruffles, a ring
planted on her finger, while his arm drapes
over her shoulder, sword at his side, blade
buried in velvet.
 
Each fold precise as petals,
her bodice, flowers painted with care.
She sits, holding breath, posture stitched
into the moment. Laces coil, her smile
a sideways flame, like she’s holding a secret
up her lace sleeve
that’s binding her to the scene.
Their garments give a little, as if the seams
survive through quiet surrender.
 
Is this the perfection we want,
this art of stillness? A love pinned
to canvas, forever out of reach, never on loan.
She holds no candle
for anyone else, perhaps content to bloom
inside her fragrant hedge. The first time
 
I saw you, it wasn’t love at first sight.
But I looked outside 
the museum frame. Love is an abstract
show where the audience 
moves on when the flames go out,
and all that’s left is lovely grey-haired smoke,
a match
with no tinder. Love feels brittle, sharpened
by the chase for something
modern art can’t capture.

Stephanie DuPont

Stephanie DuPont, originally from Miami, Florida, writes poetry to articulate what feels impossible to say. Her work has appeared in The Seventh Quarry Press, Snakeskin, Reach, and The Dawntreader. She is the winner of multiple poetry contests and a passionate advocate for nature, having volunteered in the Florida Everglades and at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden.