SATURDAY 15th AUGUST 2009.

Twenty years ago today I thought I knew
Which way to move; I figured the missing things
Could be replaced elsewhere. I was certain the future
Lay without her; in some distant bazaar;
Billeted in exotic laps after removing the wrappers
Of powders and poultices, pick me ups and knock me
Flats. Conversing with the worst kind of
Minds and teasing from them memories of times
I wished were mine, and was determined to make so.

I expected to find women falling from the
Windows I passed beneath; thinking me instant
Soup and irresistibly spooning me into salivating mouths.
Shapes and sizes prized by lingerie makers,
Or the less prouder rounded waifs grateful for
Attention should I be rejected by the perfect specimens.
Or the foreign or fleeting or blind meeting;
Seriously seen or casually had once been there
And done that, and didn’t I do well whilst frisking them.

I found all this and more; did every form
Of love except same sex, though no doubt that
Would have been next as I circled the holy globe of lust,
But I went bust one day whilst truffling
Around rougher trade, and as I waded back to
Shore saw the truth of it drifting further out to sea without me:
Everything was here to begin with, as it
Always is, in every whispered fable and bedtime
Tale that begins “Once upon a time there was a boy and a girl..”