Typeset like old books were, before
It occurred to anyone to think
About the font they used;
I spend some days feeling like that.

She’s there again (almost as if
She continued to exist after she
Left my life), and somehow she looks
Even younger than before I knew her.
(It would be such an easy comment
To make if it were not impossible.)

It is as though she is a celebrity
I didn’t recognise, and so I knew not
How special to feel when she
Allowed me into her life.

Those big blue eyes get me
Every time I remember her existence,
Even though I know what’s behind them.

In the pleasantly unspectacular
Landscape she tried to make literary,
In the picturesque villages by the motorway
Where the businessmen park their wives,
In the new town that will always be
A novelty to me, there is her,
With her words and her pictures that
Always make me feel I got it wrong.

It’s been years, but still I can only go
So far before I have to come back.
She’s never gone away; she lives in
My head just as surely as
She lives in the world.

The memory heals just in time
For me to cut myself again.
There are no pretty pictures here;
My blood is black, and all it forms
Are bitter, outdated words.

05/19/2015

Posted on 06/02/2015
Copyright © 2024 Richard Vince