Her brother stopped
you in the high street
and said, Have you heard
about Judith? No, you

replied, thinking maybe
she’d divorced or won
the lottery or had another
child. Her brother hesitated

momentary then said, She
died of cancer. It seemed
as if he’d stabbed a knife
into your gut and twisted

the blade, all the memories
of you and she walking home
from school, arm in arm,
laughing, kissing, the lessons

of school gladly forgotten,
or sitting by the pond in summer,
the birds in the trees overhead,
she and you holding hands,

kissing lips to lips, those alone
moments, those long ago summers,
those dark wintery nights,
she captured in the car headlights,

you wanting her closer and all
those images flashed before your
eyes as her brother’s words sunk in,
he standing there, knowing even

after all this time how you and she
had once been lovers, childhood
days like shadows on a far away wall,
the trees swaying and her saying

back in that moonlit lane, I’m engaged
to another, after you had proposed
innocently some years later, once
school had done its worse. Now her

brother’s words had pushed their
way into your mind, her smile, those
eyes peering into yours, that I love
you gaze, long ago, in happier days.