What did I say?
Thirty five years ago I heard
For richer, meaning that we two would plan
to build what now, is vanished like a dream.
For poorer, meant beginnings, not surcease.
For better, meant an end to walk-up flat,
Salvation Army garments; things like those.
The car, the house, the cottage by the lake
For worse, means letting go of what we’d got.
In sickness, time would heal, a day in bed
the broken bones would knit, the heart as well.
In health … thanks be, I still have some to boast,
despite the stiffened joints and aching back.
Life is a bell curve, now becoming flat
or crested wave dissolving, as years pass.
But still I huddle spooned, into each night’s embrace
and waken in the morning, to your face.
Joan Latchford
September 17th, 1993
To read other poems by Joan, click on the links below: