lunch on tuesday

what
good are
road maps when
there are so many
uncharted side streets to explore?

if
only we
always knew in
which direction to look….

It’s
New York:
you can’t tell
people not to honk.
Honking is in the constitution,
surely. It’s a way of life.

you’re
what? four
maybe? you’re walking
on your tippy toes
pink top, leopard print trousers
you’re looking down at your feet
not concerned with anything but your next step.

You
stood behind
me in the
drinks queue at Addenbrooke’s.
We were both waiting for
a cup of coffee with milk.

Why were you so impatient?
Was there really a
need to make
yourself so
large?

i would like to think of myself as
someone who tends to doodle geometric shapes.
but, hand me a multicoloured pen
and i draw the same
daisies that i’ve drawn
since i was
five years
old.

It
has come
to my attention
that part of aging
seems to involve watching one’s
body turn against itself. I disapprove.
To whom do I write to complain?

you
had such
a great smile
and a laugh that
made the corners of your
eyes crinkle up: it made
me like to listen
to what you
had to
say.

last
night i
went to hear
you sing in Beethoven’s
Choral Fantasy – a piece that
has been going through your mind
for fifteen or twenty years, you’ve said.

i’d hoped that we could share a
moment: i wanted to enter your
world. but the conductor stood
right between audience and
choir, obscuring my
view of
you.

i
get a

little homesick
when i see

my childhood, transformed
into a seaside attraction:

please mind the step
£1.00 for a long ride