Second Chances

Neither wanted the album prints
of holidays on the beach in Marseiile.
We fought for the Bentley; I got the Vauxhall
with one hundred thousand miles between

you, the party of the first part,
and me the second, eating canned tuna
in a one room walk up where oral sex
was a pint of stout on a sofa bed.

That never was Sir Galahad, Dear,
sweeping you up on his stallion,
and my Katherine or the one whose name
I forgot was but my imagination

that now sees the ghost of Uncle Fred
reflected in our bottle of port,
pouring a glass for his Tilly again
out on the settee in their garden.

I can almost smell the blossoms,
however much it snows tonight
as I start the fire with writs from the attic
so that the Phoenix may rise again

while you there, couchant on the couch,
laugh when I French kiss your wrinkled brow
after which you tickle my paunch
with pearly white love bites soft as your touch.