Then
For the first time, I listen to a lost
and secret recording of us
making love near-on ten years ago.
I recognize your voice, your sounds,
though if I knew no better,
I could be any man in any room.
After, the rising sounds of rising
and of dressing and once
as you step up close to the deck,
perhaps to pick up shoes, you sing
the chorus of Sunday Morning.
I call on you to hurry and we leave.
It does not end then; the tape rolls on.
A few late cars which sigh by
might have passed us walking away
triumphant, unaware we’ve left behind
this mop and mow mechanism
of silence to which we may never return.
Roddy Lumsden, “Then” from Mischief Night: New and Selected Poems, 2004. Reprinted with the permission of Bloodaxe Books Ltd., www.bloodaxebooks.com.
Source:
Mischief Night
(Bloodaxe Books, 2004)
