I heard the world might end on my wedding day,
began my own countdown
in yards of silk and lace,
and champagne roses (seven).


Five hundred billion miles away
a comet fractured into twelve,
spiralled towards a planet
drawn closer - still closer.


Telescopes waited, spacecraft
hung beyond the atmosphere.
I iced a cake, stitched a hem,
slept in curlers.


At three o’clock we met as strangers,
stood separate, side by side, then touched.
The twelve became twenty.
Eighty voices sang Jerusalem.


In the garden I became the hub of the universe;
people circled, brushed against me,
dusted me with kisses, wishes.
I clutched a silver plastic horseshoe.


The sun in its July nearness
shone for me; unblocked by clouds
it stirred the air, warmed my skin,
the pavement. The roses wilted.


Later, taking refuge from the throng,
the stultifying heat of a blinded room,
I sat on a roadside bench, waited
for a fireball on the dark side of Jupiter.


Saw nothing,
took it as auspicious.

© Helen Clare

from Mollusc published by Comma Press