Friday, 17 January 2025

Mary

 

Mary

 

Mary was a year older than him,

an upper sixth while he was lower

enough to paint pictures of love

in broad brushstrokes imagined,

always woke from naïve dreams

before knocking and entering in.

He only ever managed shy grins

back then, but they shared time

in the common room and spoke

words that had lots in common

were pleased that they got along,

firm friends with touched bases,

dilated pupils and flushed faces

and thoughts about inner places

which age must keep close secret.

A year was all the difference then,

if he would leap then so must she,

that’s how it must have seemed,

her great wisdom and maturity

in womanhood had blossomed;

his months were only flotsam

tossed and floating in her flood.

Catholic pure and freckled skin,

he can still see her hair framing

those dark eyes and softening

her coquettish smile in porcelain,

his tongue tied moisten her lips,

then, in a desperation, he slips

one day, folded half-baked note

into her purse: ‘Ring’ it urges

in trembled, cursive ink-stroke.

There’s numbers. I can’t recall

how it goes or what was there,

but a boy, he’s waiting her call,

bitten nails, in the sallow hall

of his parents’ home, forbidden

to ever use that phone himself

on pain of charges, and the cost

is to incur his father’s wrath,

more thick ears or purple bruise

or skin marks left by tender shoe.

Waiting near, for fear they hear,

rehearsing all the lines he’d say,

still there’s no shrill bell, until

at last snatched from the cradle,

on hearing her voice, he’s unable

to mutter even a syllable. Chokes.

I still hear those sounds of throat

closing and struggled heartbeat,

think each word that retreated,

how it could not be completed.

Weak joke - didn’t put that note

he cannot sing, bring him to say,

‘Mary, I love so much, it hurts.'

He went away. Sailed off to sea,

but once, while he was on leave,

he phoned again and they agreed

to catch up to where they were.

She's coming, heart's drumming

for it's surely more than friendship,

this new man preening in her slip,

evermore clutched by time's grip,

to hum notes he always will regret

and he knows he never will forget.




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