Christine

I remember her as
an artist blazing fire,
hands freeing visions
sometimes twisted,
often grotesque,
always hard and soft and true;
blue-eyed beauty
soft lips full.

Now deconstructed in that
junkyard of dreams
where post-modernist memories
leak like Autumn leaves,
fluttering words fail
dancing across a field of hearts,
eyes laughing glistening
agony and tears.

Watch rear-vision landscapes zoom
while time works her weary spell,
then plunge,
nearly drowned,
beached,
gasping for breath,
while
musical chuckles and
misty dreams
roam barren nights
lit by sparkling wit,
eyes bright and warm,
blond hair flowing...
but as a single tear can kill
a million germs
no flood can cure your death.

I was twenty-one,
innocent and shy,
you nineteen and far more worldly wise;
we talked at a party about masks,
people and disguises,
reality and meaning,
we clicked,
liked each other,
found an affinity,
but there was more,
always more,
and I was too naive to know.

At your door I said goodnight
but you paused,
lit by the hallway light,
glowing, bright, beautiful,
as I turned to go you asked
"do you want to come in?"
time freezes at these moments -
shyness always trembles before beauty,
it's a curse, but
you held out your hand and I took it,
next morning waking to a dream.

If only life was fixed in formaldehyde,
not flashes flicking through a rear view mirror,
laughing and dancing down the middle of
deserted Chapel street at 3 AM,
then
a restaurant in Lygon Street with your friends...

It puzzled me why your friends and
workmates were all beautiful women,
the catering business appeared staffed with
voluptuous models,
how the conversation confused me,
me with my bookish introversion and
oh so serious philosophies;
but the flower seller appeared and I
bought you a red rose,
and suddenly all chatter ceased,
your voice broke as you said
"nobody has ever done that for me",
then inserting the rose in your hair you
placed your hand on my leg.

Another rear vision flash,
a sixties-themed party,
me dressed in my biker gear with a
homemade badge proclaiming
'Hell's Angel c. 1966',
you dressed as a hippy chick riding
pillion on the Suzuki GS 400.
I was puzzled to be the only man at
the party,
and again why all your friends and
catering colleagues were so abnormally beautiful;
you said you had to leave on business for a while,
that the girls would look after me,
and so I danced with mini skirted women
some of whom wanted to play more
intimately with your
boyfriend...

When you reappeared and rescued me it seemed
you could barely contain the amusement,
but innocence as appeal has an expiry date.

Reminiscence once bitter now blurred by decades,
recriminations and angry letters,
coldness,
how I cried when you retrieved the painting
you'd given me,
'Psychological Realism' you called the style,
a woman facing away from the viewer,
her hand on a man's shoulder,
his face twisted and grotesque with anguish.

Years passed and friendship revived,
you married with two kids,
me married with two cats,
but not even your family or close friends
knew how your means were met.

He shot you in the kitchen one November
in front of the kids
then went to the pub.
The defence screamed "Provocation".
"Prostitute!" they screamed,
and he got three years for manslaughter.

So killers laugh while lovers cry,
while canvases are blank and
songs unwritten,
some say time heals hurt
but that's a lie,
part of me also died.

(c) 2013