Dear -----
 
How bland and stark that greeting sounds
when I so wish to say much more than
dear, you know, my dearest at the very least,
my sweet companion, friend and keeper of my
heart, such silliness I know, but that first word
to me brings to itself so much that lies
beyond what words can rightly say, it is
a kiss, this dear, a touch of my lips against
your slumbering brow as I stretch myself
to leave you sleeping that deep-before-waking
sleep . . . and then your name again again, again.
 
Apart from you - I so often fall and recollect
a scene, a moment shared, as yesterday,
before we went to bed, you held against
yourself this frock you’d found and liked
a linen dress its colour almost blue or almost
green and mused that dresses seem to suit
you now and that was partly my desire to see you
so attired, perhaps to feel the naked form of you
reflected, as though mirrored in movement, there
being no division or divide your whole length
down, the hang, the fall, the rearranging crease,
the gentle border fold between the hem and
stockinged leg I love to wonder at, and place my
hand like this, and this, and stroke with fingers
flat towards your knee, towards your calf.
 
All day I struggled not to leave my desk
and tasks that crowd and seek and crowd
my whole attention’s span; my children always,
all but one away, apart and living separate
lives without my care. So slowly I assembled
letters, written in my cursive hand and enveloped,
stamped, then laid to rest against the picture
frame, which shows your almost smiling face
I caught when sheltering from a morning’s rain
in Cumbria one spring, when we had lain in bed
and heard the river sing, the birds fly, our hearts beat.
 
Please know I sometimes need this time alone:
to set myself anew, to gather all the wonder
that is touch and tenderness of being close
to you. So I, like Kathleen darning every sock before
a poem might be sought or bidden, cleaned my
room and made three lists, and finally, tempted by
the late September light, walked and walked a while
beneath the chestnut trees - to and fro and to -
and seeing leaves begin to turn and fall,
the path a litter of knobbly shells, the fruit
gone into children's bins and bags, found
just one - and kept it for my love, my dearest,
kept it for my heart’s desire, my undeserved joy.
I hold this polished ‘buckeye’ in my hand and bring it
to my lips: to feel its coolness, its texture polished
richly brown now printed with a kiss.
 
 With love and in friendship

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