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First Marriage
First Marriage - Robert Seatter
“Our pasts often don’t seem to belong to us, as in this poem, when the speaker reflects on his early marriage and sees it almost in another element.”
First Marriage
Looking back, it seemed to happen
underwater. The shoes were smaller,
the hands quite white, the voices came back
in bubbles like raspberries: I do, I do.
Did I? Did we somewhere make those lists,
pick a tie to match her bouquet (eau de nil
not jade, we go through every shade of green),
smile for a mantlepiece across swimming rooms,
buy curtain rings and tin openers,
make love in front of a silent TV (our bodies
striped in watery light) and realise at night
that the breathing goes on forever –
each exhalation like a wave? Water
on our chests in a grey and green column
as far as we could see. So we swam
to the surface, clambered onto the mantlepiece,
then watched the furniture float slowly away.
from Travelling to the Fish Orchards (Seren, 2002) © Robert Seatter 2002, used by permission of the author and publisher.