~ Delta Poetry Review ~

Brian Builta

Wedding Situation, 1992

The venue of course is gone

along with youth and high hair

and the Mama Mia decorations

and tortellini in vodka sauce

and the bride/groom cake topper

and mom and dad and Darla

and pastels and Angela’s cleavage

and Father Johnson and that kiss

on the nose and the wine-driven

lack of concern, laughter and

white cake and chapel nerves

and white lapel flowers and bridal bouquet

and that pose beneath the knees

of Christ and Here Comes the Sun

and the happy pre-stroke brother

and lit candles, birdcage punch and cake-

shoved mouths and arms-crossed wine

and pose pose pose in the glow and grin

of simpler times and lace and rice in the face

the just married ball and chain

and silver-blue Celica and love

that doesn’t know much but nonetheless

is shoving off toward the first night.

Housework

The recumbent dishes refuse to bathe themselves, so we coax a machine to do it, cascading water licking smooth their cheeks. It takes two machines to clean our clothes, but we have to fold them into origami sex positions ourselves. Ecstatic bulbs show us the way. In a corner the Ficus leaves are pleased by an oscillating breeze. Besides fumbling with the flooberdooger, the most exciting thing here is the toilet water vortex at the push of a button. Everything we do is accompanied by a light ticking. And a strong urge to trash the place.

Brian Builta lives in Arlington, Texas, and works at Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth. His work has been published in North of Oxford, Hole in the Head Review, South Florida Poetry Journal, New Ohio Review, TriQuarterly, and 2River View, among others. He is the author of A Thursday in June (2024), a collection of poems about his son’s suicide, and more of his poetry can be found at brianbuilta.com.