So this is what I will marry into –
night drives to dig out cast-offs from a skip,
the long sweated haul, as if we had coaxed
and pulled a sleep-walked body back home
and set it up again in our own rooms.

Or another you saw at the back of a shop
found its own purchase and worked on you.
You said the shine off it was like looking
down through water, down past old wood,
a poplar sky or walnut’s burred flower.

And what would I make of such an inheritance?
When you are gone and I am left wondering
what should keep of love and trees and shadows,
I imagine myself not surprised to find
the settled world steady among your things.