A rehearsal is supposed to be the dull part of a wedding: people walk up an aisle with no dress, no flowers and nothing at stake. Dave Bonta's poem "Sacramental" slips the real event into that empty run-through. While everyone practises how to get married, they are also, together, committing a small crime. The poem suggests that the crime is where something genuine happens.
The poem is only three lines and thirteen syllables, and it does not follow the traditional five-seven-five pattern. It runs four, seven, two. That lopsided shape is part of the joke. The first line sets the scene, the long middle line carries the action, and the last line arrives almost too soon, like a gulp. The dash after "wedding" works as a cut, a small pause in which the reader waits to learn what "practice" is going to lead to. The answer is not what we expect from a ceremony.
The second line is the hinge, and its ending is carefully placed. "They all steal the minister's" stops on a possessive, so for a moment we hold an unfinished idea of something belonging to the minister. The word "minister's" establishes authority and ownership, which makes "steal" a literal act of taking from someone with a claim. Only then does the last line supply the object: "white wine." The verb is blunt and carries no apology. It is also in the present tense, so the theft happens now, in front of us. The word "all" matters just as much. Nobody is a lone offender here. Everyone is complicit, and the small theft becomes something the group does together.
The sound of the poem supports this. Short, tapping *i* sounds run through "practice," "wedding" and "minister's," giving the first two lines a brisk, slightly prim rhythm. Sibilance in "practice," "steal" and "minister's" suggests whispering and sneaking. Then the poem ends on "white wine," two heavy syllables with the same long vowel, so both words land with equal weight. It reads like a full stop, or a glass set down. There is no end rhyme anywhere, and none is needed, because the echo between "white" and "wine" supplies a small click of closure.
"White" carries more meaning than a description of the drink. White is the colour we associate with weddings, and it suggests purity and ceremony. Here it attaches to the stolen goods, so the traditional symbol of innocence ends up in the hands of the thieves. I read this as gentle irony rather than scandal. The poem is not attacking weddings or ministers, but it does enjoy the gap between formal purity and human appetite.
The title explains why the poem is more than a joke. A sacrament is a sacred rite in which something ordinary, such as bread, water or wine, is made holy. "Sacramental" is the adjective, meaning something that belongs to or resembles such a rite. By choosing it, the poem invites us to see the shared theft as a ritual in its own right. The stolen wine is not part of the planned ceremony, yet it may be the thing that actually binds these people together. The real communion happens off the programme, among friends who are willing to break a small rule side by side. The poem does not say whether the wine is meant for communion or is just a drink the minister has to hand. That ambiguity helps, because the sacred and the ordinary stay mixed together.
The poem also gives us very little about who is speaking. "They" suggests an observer standing slightly apart, amused rather than shocked, perhaps the one person who has not taken any wine, or perhaps not. Because the speaker never judges, the reader has to decide how to feel, and most readers will probably smile.
That economy is what makes the poem worth reading. In thirteen syllables, it sets a formal ritual against a spontaneous one and lets the spontaneous one win. It suggests that holiness is not always found where it is officially scheduled. Sometimes it turns up during the rehearsal, in a shared secret and a borrowed bottle, when nobody is yet pretending to be solemn.