Dawn’s wedding was a sloppy one maybe,
the usual pinks and gins and sentiment,
whole handkerchiefs of tears,
brothers and cousins in pinching suits
huddling to the rain-swept annexe for
a quiet fag. The uncle who’d already
that year spread his karaoke slice of
Sinatra’s My Way over a funeral
and two anniversaries, now, half-cut,
got in among the speeches.

After her husband’s accident, Dawn craved
simply to care for him, stayed up nights,
shivering with him at the fear of death.

Robert Nisbet taught English in grammar and comprehensive schools and then taught creative writing in Trinity College, Carmarthen, where he also acted as professor to exchange students over from the Central College of Iowa. He is the author of over 300 published poems.