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