Summer 1980

Sunday was our gladdening day,
When we were not at variance.
We’d lie abed, or climb through brush,
To lie on blueberry hill,
Soft limbs traced through that summer print,
Discretion not in evidence,
As fingers mired through silken bush,
Till all was tense and still.

With hungry eyes, with hands and mouths,
Withholding, cupping, dipping down,
The pause before that first sweet push,
Slipped leashes for the race.
When breathless rasp gave cause for names,
The fractured shards, the half formed words,
We dovetailed one another’s souls,
For just that one small space.

Your body was your only gift,
And it was only lent at best.
With half a sentence left unsaid,
All meaning hedged about.
For promises you never made,
Whilst skipping down that primrose path,
And blind the fool who followed you,
‘Till finally ushered out.

Say not that all hearts finally mend,
Beat on they must, but somehow closed,
Braced tight against the bitter rain,
Where hope lays, lost and drawn,
And even now there curls around,
The smallest wraith of Aramis,
To sweeten nights accustomed pain,
And watch until the dawn.

For even now the one you killed,
Still dreams within that garden wall,
He’ll steal tonight with naught amiss,
When all is hushed and still,
To Sunday, that one gladdening day,
And yet to choose who’ll leave, who’ll stay,
You’ll lie abed, or climb through brush,
To lie on blueberry hill.

                          (Chris Wilson White.)