The day before the royal wedding,

rainbow flags jostled for air with 

Union Jack bunting. Hurrying up 

Old Compton Street, I phoned my father.

From neon posters, near-naked boys invited me 

to all-weekend-long parties at the clubs.

Every stranger I passed looked happier than me.

I cried so much the night before.

Said perhaps I can send my yiayia:

two floors down from their flat,

she could tell them over breakfast.

I could picture her doing it: pink 

dressing gown over her nightdress,

light-footed in her fluffy slippers.

The angel with the message.

If it came out of her mouth

like a velvet ribbon, surely 

they couldn’t turn their faces from it?

My mother looking at her scrambled eggs

as if they were vomit.

I said to Dad we could no longer live like this.

And in my ear Dad said, It’s all right,

in the careful voice I’d heard him use

when talking to sparrows –

those curious little things, so easy to frighten,

that would perch, hollow-boned, on the railing

as he tended his delicate balcony plants.