Originally this was the first of two paired sonnets written for a contest that ran over the first week of December, 2023. The contest required the topic to be love, written in the form of your choice. I had already decided I couldn't do this - December 4 is our anniversary, and I thought there was no way I could come up with anything in that fraught week.

But Juliet and I had already planned to celebrate close to our anniversary with many of our bridal party, and I had kept to that plan, partially to honour her wish. So we had dinner on the 3rd of December, and it was the nearest I had come to being happy since her death- surrounded by those who loved us both and had over 40 years of shared joy to share. So I came home peaceful, but in the end, I could not sleep. On my mind was an entry for the contest, a poem based on two photos of Juliet which sit prominently one above the other in our lounge room. I scribbled notes on everything that was in my head, then went to bed.

The next day, I took the notes and set them into the poem that became "Two Photos of Juliet" - two English sonnets linked through almost identical couplets, rhymed ABAB. Quatrains in iambic pentameter, couplets in iambic hexameter. Two pictures separated by 39 years, about my favourite model and the love of my life. I wanted people to see the photos that inspired them, so later I got a silver subscription just to add them.

The judges found the poem set worthwhile to award them 3rd place. Apparently one on the judges, who is also a widower and writes sonnets, was in tears. And the gap between first and third was less than 2%, with the rest trailing considerably. So I "blame" Juliet for that, and all the joy in my life.

Having written two more related sonnets before Christmas 2023, I've separated them into individual poems in a sonnet sequence and left the project open-ended. The second half of that paired set is now number 2 and all of them are just titled Photos of Juliet and numbered sequentially, with the date the photo was taken.