A Clockwise Direction (revised)

[addy]

Wow, I really love this piece. Dale was pretty spot on in his comment that the poem tends to fixate on many details and images that don't seem overly significant, but i personally found that it suited the POV. It conveys a numbed obsessive-compulsiveness that was hinted on throughout the piece. Those lines you pointed out:

Blow these pictures up out of proportion
and maybe we’d spot the germ of a future:
leukaemia, cancer, emphysema,
buried deep within a Russian doll.

My vote is you not cut them (though you can remove the callback to the Russian doll if you want). I find them to be a nice take on what's going on here; looking back, looking at things, deciphering them for any context or meaning or hint. It speaks truthfully about grief, i thought.

I found the last remaining wedding photo
behind a doll in our daughter’s room.
Russian, as it happens, the doll that is,
though I read very little into that; I'm uncertain what you mean by "read into", but the idea of nesting dolls make a nice prelude to the idea of layers (dust upon dust) which overall fits well with the examination that happens in this piece
there are layers of dust upon dust in the loft
and I’m loathe to consider conversion
at this late stage in the game. Yeah, not sure how relevant this bit is

I placed it on the bookshelf where O meets P;
I’d have liked it before your favourite author
but her shelf’s too close to the ground.
My books are in alphabetical order;
I wake at 7 to clean and tidy
each day in a clockwise direction -
starting at the front door and ending in the bath. I like this stanza and all it conveys. The almost childlike simplicity of order, and how the narrator uses it to emotionally blanket himself

I compare it to my parents’ wedding picture
that’s hanging next to the dining room door;
they had a bigger cake, more friends and relations,
dressed black and white, a formal occasion;
contemplative, no eye for the camera.
My mother’s fatter in the face than I remember,
and isn’t that an ashtray beside the cake? Around this stanza the fixation becomes visibly more severe. It meanders but the emotions are maturing and arching, which is nice

Blow these pictures up out of proportion
and maybe we’d spot the germ of a future:
leukaemia, cancer, emphysema,
buried deep within a Russian doll.
How happy we appear! My Mum said never
had I looked so handsome, like Richard Gere;
perhaps that’s the joke we’re laughing at.

Behind us I trace the faintest whisper
of the tower blocks blown in ’88.
As we’re cutting the cake, your face
burns with embarrassment
or anticipation of the sauce to come.
I can feel the grip that you have on my arm,
as if I might be the first to depart.

When lights fade I think I can hear you breathing,
but it’s central heating or a noise in the loft.
I close the windows to keep your scent in,
I reach out to touch an amputation;
I said we shouldn’t buy a bed this wide.
You never see pictures taken at funerals
unless somebody important has died. I quite liked most all of your lines. Sorry I'm not more helpful