A Memory

I looked in the bin today and saw our wedding book

In the recycling

We are broken

But we’re good for the environment.

Don’t put it with the doggie faecal matter

No that would be wrong

Just lie it on top of yesterday’s news

Or free it up for someone’s fish supper

Plenty more fishes.

I am a shark

For I must keep moving

So quickly the pictures are removed, the ‘us’ the ‘we’

And such dreams we had become distant stillness

Never played out on the movie screen.

And we do withdraw like battled coral,

Limpets creeping back into the dark,

Crabs scuttling sideways

Sinking into sand

Leaving no trace.

Soon we will be gone

And all I’ll have is our memories

But even now they are tarnished,

An oil-slick coated oasis that once was.

Sand scrubs skin harsh and grit

Embeds itself into places you’ll never reach

And we’ll shower and scrub and towel

But those small grains will be there

In those places we can’t reach.