JOHNMICHAEL SIMON POETRY

She was quite good looking

in a kind of frowsy way

long auburn hair hanging

a little disconcertingly over her

plumpish shoulders

 

He had been introduced to her

by a friend who said she was divorces

and at a loose end in her life.

Her vulnerability attracted him

he enjoyed her little-girlishness

felt a mixture of fatherly and

heady sexual emotions

 

But when she started talking

about Yossy, her ex, he felt annoyed

as on and on she went, detailing Yossy’s

good and bad points, his difficult

childhood, his heavy drinking , why she

still missed him somehow…

 

When she excused herself to run a quick

errand, he wandered aoround the apartment

and bumped into her flatmate – a slim

wavy-haired brunette, single and in her twenties

 

They started talking, she was interesting

he liked her slight lisp, the way she looked him

straight in the eyes. He invited her out and a week

later they went to an expensive restaurant. she wore

a blue sequined gown which she had borrowed

from a friend

 

The rest is commentary. They had a short affair. She

introduced him to her mother who laughed, said

he should stand on a bucket to reach her – she was

slightly taller

 

They got married in February in a pouring rain storm

half the guests did not arrive. They could have dined

for a year on the uneaten food

 

Half a century later, at the birthday party of their

granddaughter, he looked around at his four grown-up

sons and daughters, their partners and children

chatting away gaily

 

He chuckled to kimself thinking – had one mixed-up

young lady been able to forget Yossy, all these people

would not be here – would never have been born at all