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.
Jul 1, 2012
Jul 1, 2012 at 3:34 AM UTC
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.
Request permission to use this poem