As if they were the last words

When I write poetry
I should put down the words
as if they were the last words
I would ever write,
the last words I would ever utter,
the last thoughts I would ever think.

These are those words.

I first met her on a green bus
when chrome yellow
crowned her head
and brown suede
swathed her form;
when eyes blue as cornflower
challenging and shy
filled mine
as a glass is filled
with wine to overflowing,
as the past was filled
so much with the present
that it risked oblivion.

She turned my world
to arcs of rainbows
tossed into a kaleidoscope
and shaken like a cocktail,
her peacock’s feathers
flagrant as lightning.

The thrumming motor,
the bus-conductor’s bell
and the clattered conversation
reverberating
like naked jazz
in suburban jungles
faded myopically
and unfocused
to the wash of waves
rhythmic on a gravel beach,
to the gnash of rain
nibbling at gutters,
to the gash of silence
whispering the empty church.

A distant tinkling
woke the driver
and drove me from my reverie.
The bus-stop! The bus stopped.
I got up and off:
and she did likewise.
At the kerb, I –
by prodigious espionage
knowing where she lived,
and icy with the breath
of apprehension –
asked if I might walk with her:
and she said yes.

I, a molten waxwork,
recall little of our conversation
save that, at her threshold,
I asked if I might see her
tomorrow:
and she said no –
but that the next day
would be nice.

Once out of sight,
I skipped.

Neither one of us
would ever be
the same person again.

These I have written
as if they were my last words
and are the words by which –
were I to be remembered –
I would like to be remembered.