How Does the Poet Present the Relationship Between Her Parents in 'One Flesh'?

Elizabeth Jennings presents the relationship between her parents in a contrasting way. The title, ‘One Flesh,’ suggests a couple in the prime of their relationship. However, what we get is something that is quite the opposite – they are ‘lying apart now’, in separate beds. The third word, ‘now,’ suggests that this is something recent, and that before her parents were extremely close, and instead of dreaming of the past – ‘She like a girl dreaming of childhood’ – or occupying themselves with false pursuits – ‘the book he holds unread’ – they had a passionate relationship, ‘Whose fire from which I [Elizabeth Jennings] came.’ The ‘shadows overhead’ suggest that perhaps all the colour has been drained from the relationship, and the use of religious words in the second stanza – ‘confession’ and ‘Chastity’ – suggests that the only reason they are still together is because they made vows, and they intend to keep them, however unhappy they become. This is reinforced by the rhyme scheme in the first two stanzas, ending both times with a rhyming couplet, as though there is some stern bond holding it together. Jennings’ parents, while both physically in the same room, are mentally worlds apart, with one dreaming of days gone past, and the other pretending to read. This is also shown when she talks of how her father is ‘keeping the light on,’ and her mother is ‘fixed on the shadows overhead’. The use of the words ‘apart’, ‘separate’ and ‘elsewhere’ show how they no longer need each other, but are not lonely, instead retreating into their own isolated worlds, and while they uphold their relationship, they sleep in different beds, which in itself reinforces how they are independent of each other. We can also see signs of their fading relationship with words such as ‘cool’ and ‘cold.’ There are references to how the two have lost emotion in their old age, without necessarily