Poem 149

One of the few poems I wrote after I stopped at the end of the eighties – and this one was written on request …

… on the fateful afternoon Michele and I sat beside each other at a Sunday matinee in Circa 2 I politely asked her how she was and she replied she didn’t know me well enough to say … afterwards in the bar, a glass or two of bubbles down, she suggested that we should each write a poem and show it to the other … no doubt she regretted this the next morning or possibly even forgot about it – but I was the boy who always did his homework so I wrote this poem, stitching together moments our paths had intersected over the previous years … it was so early on that for the first and last time I spelt her name with two l’s in the title …

… and what did she write for me? … she produced a poem that was clearly one ‘prepared earlier’ and equally clearly about Danny not me …

( what am I even doing here? is a line from the play Joyful & Triumphant … )

For Michele

You wore a red dress
and I dropped a glass
the first time I remember 
seeing you

a year before that sitting in a room
Danny talking to you 
long distance
	          something so volatile
between you that London
or no damn London within a minute
you were arguing

what am I even doing here?
first you’re in a play
then you’re at a play
pushing through the foyer crowd
to a guy I didn’t know
a little playful hop
to arrive in his face
	                 here I am

you standing up from the half-circle of chairs
at a reading
picking up your bike helmet
	                           Florence
to get back to

asking if Katie got your hate mail
after you almost landed CoverStory
me watching your audition
watching you give my lines a twist
voice barely raised playing it smart
and steely

years we’ve known each other
‘to talk to’
	        just not well enough
to tell the truth
about how we are

or who we are


but I'm trying

why not?
so long since your red dress
me staring at all the glass
around my feet
wondering why things never get
any easier