Starter Marriage
Everybody came to my first wedding.Smelly Neil from primary schoolplayed ‘Splat the Rat’ with the skinhead girlwho sold me fake ecstasy. The bodybuildersfrom dad’s porn films told jokes about potatoesto monochrome ancestors who’d perishedin the Great Famine. After dinner, the midwifepassed around the bloody forceps.The ‘absent friends’ toast got a bit confusingas they all kept piping up, ‘I’m here!’The line-up took hours, embracing everyhalf-remembered person: the manfrom the secret photos in mum’s dresser,my teenage babysitter who jumped off a cliffat Flamborough Head, etc. Some faceswere impossible to place. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said,finally, to one chap, ‘Who are you?’He looked at me, hurt. ‘I’m a BT operator,I kept you in a call queue for forty minutes in2007.’
‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Listen,’ he said,‘The band is playing our song!’…
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The American Poetry Review (Digital) - 1 Issue, January/February 2025