Diana Hendry reflects on a family memory in this piece from her New and Selected Poems, The Seed-Box Lantern (Mariscat Press, 2013, £10).

MY FATHER'S CHANDELIER

It was love at first sight.

He bought the house that housed it.

At night it turned our hall

into the planetarium

or a Viennese ballroom poised

for Strauss waltzes. It was Europe

lighting up its candles,

my father's happy-ever-after

fairy tale. Mid-century my sister

danced her bridal night under it.

We sold it. It was too showy,

too difficult to clean. We had

no room

for it and no heart. Now we go

for side lights, lights that cast shadows,

or those cheap, non-lasting paper shades

that shift and shake in the many draughts.

Yet still it shines in memory's dark,

my father's dream, a hanging basket of light,

impossible to put out.