Hymn to a Broken Marriage

On our wedding day I say to my bride
“We will be together for ten years, max”
and she shrugs and says
“It is not like our parents’ day”
and we laugh, I pick confetti from her hair
adjust her veil, because I want her to look perfect

for the photographs.
“If we have children I will be an inattentive father." I say.
"More than once our son will be waiting for me to pick him up
after football practise
and as he stands in the phone-box outside the school
I will be in the bath, my head submerged

in bubbles."
“That’s okay,” my bride says to me.
“our children will learn to tolerate these things”
and the photographer calls our names,
we turn and smile,
the church behind us in glorious sunshine,
my hand on the shoulder
of a bridesmaid.