Assistant Editor Andy Sia: Cassandra Whitaker’s poem pays mind to the dizzying spell of a summer wedding; the resulting epithalamium is a breathless wreath of anticipation, retrospection and contemplation. More directly, Whitaker invokes flowers—the names of flowers—in the witnessing of a moment at once intimate and cosmic. That cosmos nests amid the flowers is apt: love is that which radiates out, to which all returns.
Listen to Cassandra read the poem:
Before the Wedding
Text:
Note: The text of the poem is best viewed on a desktop.
Say yes—say yes—say yes say yes
What comes next comes faster faster
When she asks for her hand the answer
The eager breath of afternoon desires
Summer’s names: dahlia—cosmos—aster
Even in slow hours love after love is love
how many appetites demand an answer?
the eager breath of afternoon desires
say yes say yes say yes say yes
what comes next comes faster faster
in the end what comes first comes after
even with the smallest breath love is after
Cassandra Whitaker (she/they) is a trans writer living in rural Virginia. Whit’s work has been published in Michigan Quarterly Review, Conjunctions, The Mississippi Review and other places. They are a member of the National Book Critics Circle and an educator. Their book, Wolf Devouring A Wolf Devouring A Wolf, is forthcoming from Jackleg Press in 2025. Her website is wolfs-den.page.
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