Wes Magee
Forty Years On
Teenagers, they'd fumbled in the cinema's back row
and, one iced night in the dead of winter long ago
when totally togged-up in duffle-coat, scarf and glove,
they'd clung and trembled beneath a dripping, humpback bridge.
A passion play rehearsal performed inside a 'fridge!
So, what became of her, his mini-skirted first love?
Forty years on just one 'phone call had him seeing stars
- Venus must surely have been in conjunction with Mars -
and they met in that same town: she was now long-skirted,
he greying and rotund. They lunched in a pub, rambled
non-stop through four decades of lifestyle news, then ambled
around a ruined castle. Teens again, they flirted.
And it came to pass, at the far end of middle age,
a five-star hotel's four-poster bed was the soft stage
for a grand performance of their synchronised sex show
And who cared about stomach sag, bags, or wrinkled face?
It was like a comet coming back from deepest space
to be greeted with orgasmic cries of "Wow!" and "Oh!"
And today? Another decade's almost come and gone
and assignations in chill, distant towns just aren't on.
Passions have cooled to postal gifts: silk scarf and suede glove.
Those fumbling, unrhymed efforts when the weather was hard
have trimmed to trembly one liners of the Christmas card:
`Memories.....and good wishes for the coming year. Love.....'
and, one iced night in the dead of winter long ago
when totally togged-up in duffle-coat, scarf and glove,
they'd clung and trembled beneath a dripping, humpback bridge.
A passion play rehearsal performed inside a 'fridge!
So, what became of her, his mini-skirted first love?
Forty years on just one 'phone call had him seeing stars
- Venus must surely have been in conjunction with Mars -
and they met in that same town: she was now long-skirted,
he greying and rotund. They lunched in a pub, rambled
non-stop through four decades of lifestyle news, then ambled
around a ruined castle. Teens again, they flirted.
And it came to pass, at the far end of middle age,
a five-star hotel's four-poster bed was the soft stage
for a grand performance of their synchronised sex show
And who cared about stomach sag, bags, or wrinkled face?
It was like a comet coming back from deepest space
to be greeted with orgasmic cries of "Wow!" and "Oh!"
And today? Another decade's almost come and gone
and assignations in chill, distant towns just aren't on.
Passions have cooled to postal gifts: silk scarf and suede glove.
Those fumbling, unrhymed efforts when the weather was hard
have trimmed to trembly one liners of the Christmas card:
`Memories.....and good wishes for the coming year. Love.....'
Page(s) 3
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