To a Half-Forgotten Girl

In a leather jacket

you play-acted

finger popping wildcat

flashed your teeth like a dog

wore bruises as badges:

‘since I saw you last

I’ve been handed around

by soldiers.’

You’re there

washing my back in a shared bath

wilding a double decker

top deck

howling as branches thump the glass

You’re there

telling me you’re a Russian spy

eyes as white as stratus clouds

just as full of rain.

In your father’s

village-green vicarage kitchen

appearing in a summer dress

hair up

the unexpected good girl

bad girl

bent-backed over a gravestone

as I dragged your flesh into mine

afterward by a motionless canal

telling me you would die

of ovarian cancer

‘so eat me while I’m still fresh’

You’re there in pubs and nightclubs

refusing to hold hands

there in the ruins of my past

saying nothing

in a dimming light

I want to write about your body

but it’s gone

I want to write about your face

it’s gone

I want to write your name.

This poem is all I have.

It’s everything I’ll ever have

of you.