I
bought you coffee -
always
did on Sunday morning at the Clock Cafe.
We'd
sit at the window people watching,
sometimes
you'd mock me and say,
"Don't
you have any mirrors at home",
or
"Ooo don't look now, spot the gay".
My
retort was just as bad,
"You
bitter old queen -
they
all think you're my dad!"
But
that was another Sunday thirty years ago.
Today
the repartee has worn a little thin,
resting
on the counterpane,
the
silent testimony to your years with him.
I'm
in so few of those casual snaps,
fact
is I took them all -
except
the one you sneaked unposed,
where
I was naked and stretched
across
the rocks, Cretan boys were diving
from
the docks and came out
blurred
into the background.
An
obvious eye for the boys
you'd
always qualify it and say,
"you're not a flash-in-the-pan
you're
up there among the men,
you're
special to us". I wanted to ask
was
that picture of me or them?
But
I already knew the answer -
It
was probably both! Such an appetite
for
love. An infinite capacity
for
mayhem.
I
didn't quite see it like that back then.
You
could say my position has evolved,
because
now I believe everything
you
said - the jealousy dissolved.
And
I don't know if it's the medicine talking
because
you ask if I loved you
equally. I thought you deserved the truth
and
when I said I loved him more -
You
put it down to callow youth,
"but
thanks for sticking around!"
then so generously added,
"he loved you too, you know"
He
gripped my hand as if his
life
depended on what was coming next
"you're
not in the album much
and
I see why?", and you know what
he's
right. "We always let you take the pictures.
You
were camera shy".