Walking home, through the park.
Shift over, heading home. Idling, lost in thoughts of tea.
Two girls, seventeen or so perhaps, laughing, joking.
Heading towards me, I should look away.
Feeling bold for a change, I keep my head up,
all too aware of the caustic sting to come.

Aware of my age, and lack of interest to those so young.
But what the hell? Hurt no long matters,
years of slings and arrows have left the hide armoured.
The dark one looked up, saw me, noticed my existence for the first time.
Our eyes met, time sheered, thirty years fell away.

She smiled, caught out perhaps. Or perhaps she saw with me
my old self,  shyly worshiping the college girl.
Porcelain skin, quirky face, funny, no, not beautiful.
Her figure adequate, no more than that, no, more than that,
tall, slim, fine-boned.

She was perfect for me, no matter who she was,
when she was, she was the one.
Hundreds before her faded, those yet to come, a myth.
A decade enthralled. Years of lonely, hiding myself
from her. Just to touch her skin, finger to finger,
to hold her eye, to say the right thing for once.

To sit in her room, to talk of things, meaningful.
For her to willingly climb with me, take wet moorland walks.
Unashamed to  hold my hand in cheap pubs,
to sneak back student digs, halls of residence.

To share a cup, and always, yes, to go to bed.
Softly, gently, to touch.
That would have been enough, though it never was to be.
But then she turned away, the spell was broken.

They walked past, giggling,
I think she shouted something at my back,
It didn’t matter.
For a short minute, or a few long hours,
I had been back there.
The sad sweet longings of memory rekindled.
I wish I could have thanked her for that.

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