Time

You're sitting outside the pub
hair coarser and shorter now -
not the soft curls I loved so much.

But you have the same nut-brown voice.
(Remember that? Who's the boy with the nut-brown voice? she said.)

Your face is heavier, too, and you've been
dipped in flour or heavily made up,
fine lips swollen, caked and cracked.

You can't quite close your mouth.
It's disappointing.

You look pleased to see me, though,
laughing at my jokes, your body jumping awkwardly,
first signs of the old man already there.

And suddenly I realise I'm an old lush,
talking too loudly, laughing too hard,
gesticulating wildly to impress you
(twentysomethings raising their eyebrows.)

What am I doing?
I'm wearing a red kaftan and smoking Silk Cut.

I turn and look down Old Street.
It's June in London, 1997.

Stay in the moment and none of the rest will happen, I say to myself, blowing smoke rings into my past.