Holding on
Of course I will, no problem, any time.
Today? Let’s see... The calendar’s quite blank.
You’d better cancel? Course not – what a thought!
When’s your appointment? Not till quarter past?
You might be gone a while? I didn’t mind.
I’d been a sitter many times before.
The first was for my niece. That was before
my sister moved. Then there’s been the odd time
when next door’s come to ask me if I’d mind
feeding that damn cat. Refusing point blank
could cause offence. I know she’s sometimes thought
me, wrongly, less than friendly in the past.
That’s how the care of Margery was passed
to me that afternoon. Ruth said, before
she left her Mum alone with me, she thought
a game of dominoes would fill some time.
I knocked and all she’d left was double blank,
She won hands down. Of course I didn’t mind.
A pound a spot was what she had in mind.
Another hour of playing slowly passed.
I boxed the set but had to sign a blank
crossed cheque to clear my debts. I said, before
I make a cup of tea, there should be time
to look through those old albums. Just a thought.
She glowered. Do I know you? Well, I thought,
let’s hope these photographs will bring to mind
some recollection of a clearer time
beyond the vacant now: the lifelong past.
Her wedding. Husband there once more before
her. Distant eyes remain completely blank.
Who’s this? I prompt her. Still she draws a blank.
I turn back further… pointless is my thought.
Another handsome sepia face before
her own. She starts. She sparkles. In her mind
a little piece of magic from the past,
a fragment of a moment held in time.
Though her today is blank, fast in her mind
her lucid thought is to a love long past.
She’s standing still before him. So is time.