To love and to cherish
She always said she’d buy
her wedding dress, but that was then.
Today she’d have approved your choice
as you walk the aisle in re-used white.
I’d washed it twice, to be sure;
thought of her washing mine
in the Hotpoint twin tub, good as new.
You wear her three-string pearls,
and I the single strand of pink
I watched her fasten round her neck
when she was mother of the bride
another life ago.
For fourteen years they’ve nestled
in a wooden box, waiting.
The roses on her wedding snaps
were never grey to me. My child’s eye
saw the rich dark red, still fresh
in the memory of a day I never knew.
My own were yellow; today
you carry white and orange
with ribbon tied twice round.