It's rare for me to think of you now,
But when I do it is always fondly;
Perhaps moreso than you deserve,
But as I see it from here I have
No idea how it looked from there any more.

The things I remember vary too.
Or at least the things I now seem
To find most memorable.
Today it's the way you wrote that
Floats gently to the surface of
My memory. You may well still
Write that way for all I know.
True, I could find out if I wanted...
But not today, I think.

I do sometimes wonder, though, if
You still do all the things that
I looked for as touchstones in
The work of your many disciples,
Like lines that begin with ampersands
Stuck firmly onto the front of
The following word, and words
Split into their component elements,
And ten point Arial font.

You're still the only person in
America that I've managed to
Persuade to listen to the Levellers...
I'd almost forgotten about that
Strange aim of mine, and I wonder
If you got any of your friends to
Like them, or if you still listen to them,
Or if they remind you of me.

I hate hyphenated words, but I doubt
You ever even noticed that.
And I'd be surprised if you think
Of me, like I sometimes think of you.
You stick in my mind like a
Broken promise, with jagged edges lodged
In my memory and no way of
Removing it without dividing myself
Like every thing and any thing
Encapsulated in your words.

And at the end of next month
I will think of you, as always...

And while some may claim
I haven't changed over those
Three years, you'd probably notice
Something different if we talked now.
Or you might not.

05/11/2003

Posted on 05/11/2003
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