A Marriage Made in the Sky

A Wedding in the Clouds

J.P. Stilwater

They did not walk an aisle.
They climbed into it.

Morning still clung to the grass
when the engine turned over—
a rough prayer of metal and faith—
and the earth loosened its hold.

She wore no train,
only courage stitched into silk.
He wore no uniform,
only the calm of a man
who had already trusted his life
to the sky.

Below them,
people became gestures.
Streets became lines.
The world simplified
the way it does
when truth is near.

At a thousand feet
the minister raised his voice
against the wind,
words scattering,
yet somehow finding their place
between heartbeats.

“Do you—”

The plane dipped,
then steadied.

“I do,” she said,
and meant the air,
the waiting,
the long absences,
the sound of engines
returning late.

“I do,” he said,
and meant the risk,
the weather,
the promise to come back
when he could.

Another plane flew beside them,
witnesses close enough
to wave,
far enough
to let the moment belong.

No bells rang.
No doors closed.
Only clouds opened—
white, drifting,
indifferent and eternal.

They were married
where gravity loosens,
where fear has nowhere to hide,
where love must hold
or fall.

And when they descended,
nothing looked the same—
not the ground,
not the sky,
not the rest of their lives.

Some weddings bind hands.
Theirs bound horizons.