I found the last remaining wedding photo

behind a doll in our daughter's room.

Russian, as it happens, the doll, that is,

though I read very little into that.

There are layers of dust upon dust in the loft,

but I'm loathe to consider conversion 

at this late stage in the game.

 

I placed it on the bookshelf, where O meets P;

I'd have liked it in front of your favourite author,

yet her shelf's too close to the ground.

My books are in alphabetical order,

to indulge an obsession, I clean and tidy

each day in a clockwise direction,

starting at the front door and ending in the bath.

 

I compare it to my parents' wedding picture,

the one hung next to the dining-room door;

they had a bigger cake, more friends and relations,

dressed black and white, a formal occasion,

contemplative, no eye for the camera.

My mother's fatter in the face than I remember,

and isn't that an ashtray beside the cake?

 

Blow these pictures up out of proportion

and maybe you'd spot the germ of a future,

leukaemia, cancer and emphysema

buried deep within a Russian doll.

How happy we appear! My mum said never

had I looked so handsome, like Richard Gere,

perhaps that's the joke we're laughing at.

 

Behind us I trace the faintest whisper

of the tower blocks toppled in the blitz.

As we're cutting the cake your face

is burning with embarrassment

or anticipation of the sauce to come.

Look at the grip that you have on my arm,

as if I might be the first to depart.

 

When lights fade I think I hear you breathing,

but it's central heating or wind in the loft.

I close the windows to keep your scent in,

I reach out and touch an amputation;

I said we shouldn't buy a bed this wide.

You never see pictures taken at funerals

unless somebody important has died.