as the rain slides  down
the window pane
and the moondrifts from
cloud to cloud

i remember my first
flatmate...

Jerome,
who tooks his smalls
home to be washed by
his mother,
who was fastidious about
trimming his ginger...brown
beard, but not so fastidious
in cleaning the sink...
the owner of Muffin, the budgeriagar who survived
being vaccumed up once,
but not twice....
Jerome, full of gay angst
and closeted pride...
who taught me...
love is not an animal
that can be leashed
but is a thing,
of wild untamed beauty...

Jerome....who gave love
in buckets and bunches
of floppy daffodils...

i lost him as a friend, many
years past......but some nights drear and dark
he pops by....to say cheerio