Frozen in their Kodaks,

our old folk wear slippers

to protect the carpet from their feet.

Colours leech. A tap drips.

Dinner lingers in another room.

A yucca erupts on the lawn.

The lounge is an orgy

of fakery: leatherette armchairs,

plaster dogs, silk orchids,

mock encyclopedias

and more fringe than necessary

on lamps, hairdos, lips, pelmets

plus random tassels

wherever there is dangling

and come-hither velvet.

If a grandparent smiles

it is like a wolf had stopped by

for tea and a slice of Battenberg.

Parents vogue in folky

knitwear surrounded by cigarettes

and the Sixties.

Is this how they will see us,

our early years tucked into albums

balanced on the knee like babies?

Will pages crackle as laminates

separate and we stare back red-eyed

as hounds from blind pubs?

Whereas our last few decades

will click past in seconds on a screen,

backlit, cropped and cherry-bright.

There they can find us,

between swipes, catching our breath,

wiping the joy from our sleeves.