The assignation, a step and a frisky skip away from prying eyes,
Blinking in morse code enlightening the desultory sun,
with hands clasped like Hansel and Gretel in the woods,
We deny that this is a trip… but it is a trip!
We paddle in the brook like when we were kids…
And love was tender like a chaste cheek kiss.
We run across the road to the fields,
The fields where we can lie
And lie as if the future is ours.
You are cool and hot in your summer dress
And bare legs. A pre-emptive coquettishness.
And I, am I, in shorts and bowie vest shirt…
Feigning Don Juan laissez faire.
We lie on beach towels and tug on lager,
Like we never played this game a hundred times before!
As preteens, listening to ‘lamplight’ in your parents front room,
Or as sixteen year olds, when Marie finished with me,
And kindly fetched you up to look after my needs…
Such humility. You were never a first reserve.
You were my daisy-chain lover, at 9 or 10,
Sitting in the long grass plaiting daisies,
And dreaming dreams.
But there next to the Roman spring, lacing hands and bodies,
And yearning for a world that I had not already fucked up.
This is the hard part. You were my best friend, and I was your first love.
I loved to be with you, I loved your body and soul,
But in love is a different kettle of carp,
I loved Marie, it could be no other,
And I was trapped in another’s claws,
No escape.
The world would have been easier if I could have loved you
With the same depth as you loved me.
This is the lesson life teaches, and costs the most…
Does not matter how much you want to love and be loved in return,
The heart’s filthy lesson is that you cannot choose.
Eternal love is cosmic and beyond our control.
There is no second guess.
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dedicated to Sue, wherever you are.
DALE M
future daze 