These Foolish Things

the lamp on the kitchen table
we bought in France; Marché au Puce, 
Paris, to be precise.  How you bartered
with the grumpy Monsieur;how
you said to me, We need another lamp
like we need a hole in the head!

The battered, old copper saucepan
we bargained for, before break of dawn –
Caledonian Market, Southwark - London,
you always make our scrambled eggs
in, on Christmas morning...the chipped
white ashtray Mum gave us, you tried
to mend and the glue - turned blue...
the script around the edge in a language 
looks like French, but isn’t. How
we plan to chuck it away
but never do.

The nest of inlaid mahogany tables
you brought back from Iran, in those heady days
before the revolution...so heavy to carry
on the plane, but you managed it, plus
a giant panda and dolls' house for the kids,
and how they missed you. The beer stein 
from Hamburg; the Bier-Fest you went to, 
on business, you said, and when you phoned
you sounded in excess of three sheets to the wind. 
The coil-pot our eldest made at the age of five – 
now one of the most poignant and precious 
things we own – the boofadoo you bought
in Provence, you use to light the barbecue
and how we fell about laughing when Madame
told us its name.

We’ve come so far, us two...looking round;
our home – full of the latest labour-saving
devices.  Such a far cry from the three rooms
we rented, upstairs in your parent’s house
when first we married, for a couple of quid 
a week.  As the dishwasher completes its cycle, 
and the washing machine whirrs, and the 50 inch 
TV on the wall with plasma screen and 3D
looks down on it all with unflinching eyes – 
can’t help but get to thinking, it’s not any
of these – but those insignificant, little
foolish things, are the sum total
of who we really are.