Being in love
was like being ill
and that day
after Judy’d left

to go to Florence
for a week
you went to the big city
to take your mind off her

but she lingered there
wherever you went
every brunette
with long hair

was her
and when you sat
in the Royal Opera House
to watch a ballet

she was there
down in the front
at least it seemed so
until the girl looked around

and had a different
face and eyes
and sitting
in that coffee house

by Piccadilly Circus
you sensed her absence
and drank coffee
after coffee

the blues eating
at you
wanting her there
beside you

imagining maybe
she’d not gone off
after all and that
at any minute

she’d seek you out
by some kind of
lover’s radar
but she never showed

and no other girl passing
was her
and you thought
of the time

a few weeks back
when after she’d
gone off home
from work

you had taken
a single hair
from her white
work coat

and twisted it
between fingers
and kept it
between pages

of Solzhenitsyn’s
Gulag Archipelago
seeing it
and moving it

each time
you read more
of the labour camps
and death and snow

and tundra
and she off in Florence
with friends
and you left behind

depressed
and love blind.