The Reluctant Bride And Groom Poem by fiona sinclair

The Reluctant Bride and Groom

He waited all summer for some other glittering girl
to catch his mate's attention,
then sidled up in tatty teddy boy jacket,
stuttered as if asking a girl out for the first time.
She accepted, to remain in the rich boy's eye-line.

Knocking for him, she negotiated the furniture thicket
that comprised the shop's stock,
its lichen streaking her summer coat.
Gagging at fry- ups ossified on Georgian tables,
she declined father's tipsy gesture towards stained tea pot,
tried to engage mother turned to stone by a gorgon disease,
whilst her date in peep toed socks
shamefully scooped out sandwich remains from a shoe,
her need to laugh supressed like a fart.

But after too many Saturday evenings
listening to the light programme,
when he suggested ‘Dreamland' the following week
she agreed with wallflower relief.
Soon weekends were football socials, cricket club tea rotas…
Friends catching marriage like measles
urged ‘Your turn next'
but eyes were avoided, subject changed

Finally his mumbled ‘I suppose we'd better get hitched',
her mother's counsel over cocoa,
You're nearly 30; you'll be left on the shelf.
So she accepted his proposal like a below reserve bid.
But every few months a tearful I don't love him,
her mother reacting as if cancelling a wedding
was like recalling a launched invasion.
Until one May afternoon she found herself conveyed in a car
that seemed to fly at a whip-cracked pace to the church,
where she spotted her bridegroom's panting arrival
after a cartoon sprint across fields,
chanted to herself the inverted vows I don't, I don't, I don't.