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Yvonne Baker

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Washing the floor with Dirk Bogarde

While I shook hands with the sweaty clasp of rubber gloves
and Radio Four muttered in the corner, Dirk Bogarde
addressed me across the grey vinyl expanse of the floor.
He complained that a woman had asked him
Didn’t you used to be Dirk Bogarde?
which made him think - if he was Dirk Bogarde then
who was he now?  I nodded sympathetically.

Once I had been going to marry him.
His photographs filled my life.  I couldn’t wait
to join him on the screen.  Just as soon as
I rid myself of my glasses, stammer and stumpy plaits.
I knew he liked antiques and classical music,
and so would I, when I could stop humming
The Runaway Train and sharing a secret love
of white glossy furniture with Doris Day.

I counted the years between us trying
to make them less.  Then Dirk told me,
quite publicly and plainly, in black and white,
that it was a far, far better thing that he left.
Later he did skulk off to Provence.  To write, he said.

But now he’s gone and I am still here,
although perhaps it is not a far better thing
that I am rubbing muddy footprints,
scraping hardened cat food and gathering fluff.
I plunge my jaundice-coloured cloth into the water.
My reflection asks,  Didn’t you used to be me?

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