LAST-MINUTE TEMPTATION

No bride’s gown – it’s on the maid of honor.
His sweetheart advanced down the row,
but the strapless dress made a better offer.

Up the aisle came a green Madonna.
His eyes strayed, but he did not show
he saw not the bride’s gown, but the maid of honor.

Her dress glowed as she came nearer.
Who would look at his bride’s trousseau
when the strapless dress was a better offer?

What was wiser he did ponder.
Prim and proper or a quick rendezvous?
Leave the bride’s gown for the maid of honor?

His fantasy was soon a goner.
Where would they go
if the strapless dress made a better offer?

A lasting union he could not squander.
His place as her beau he really did know.
His love wore the bride’s gown not the maid of honor.
He knew the strapless dress wasn’t a better offer.

What contest judge Stephen Gibson says: “This is a very skilled villanelle that is at once engaging and moral in its wry craftiness (pun intended). A very nicely accomplished piece.” 

Phyllis St. George is a poet, filmmaker, and workshop leader whose poetry has appeared in the Hiram Poetry Review, Every Day Musing (an anthology), and numerous 30 Poems in November anthologies.  She has had residencies at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown and with the Straw Dog Writer’s Guild at Patchwork Farm Retreat. She produced and directed two short films.