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Angela Kirby

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Dear Traitor

I was just wondering
whether you'd noticed the date?
if we'd stuck it out,
and you hadn't screwed up,
this would have been
our golden wedding

but you chucked it all in
short of half-way through,
a pity, if you think of it,
there could have been one hell
of a party - music, fireworks
(no change there) champagne
and the last tier of the cake -

can't you just see it all
the five children
and the grandchildren
and our eldest making a speech
or some old fart we've known
for ever, drunk and rambling on
with everyone cheering

and the band strikes up
the Anniversary Waltz, you
give me a topaz, we sweep
on to the floor, me in gold lamé,
bouquet and alice-band to match,
an ensemble which, on reflection,
is at my age a mistake

and look, here's you, rakish
as ever, yellow silk cravat,
rose buttonhole
and that cheery air
of desperate optimism
which a longish stretch inside
has not quite scotched -

still, twenty-four years
are not to be sneezed at, few
couples nowadays make it that far
so, in spite of everything,
wherever you are, good luck –
if you were here, bastard,
I'd share the caviar.



Untitled - Brian Pomeroy

Page(s) 78

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