Memories flock my vision as the sky turns red
to mark the end of this day. I sit still,
reminiscing the time you lost the key
to my car and stood shaking in a tea-green
dress. I wiped your tears after what appeared an age
had passed and for the first time you kissed me.

My pulse sped as I inhaled your perfume
and watched your face turn raspberry red;
I held back, so not to take advantage
but your soft mouth opened. You stood still,
waiting, my dark haired Elsie Green
in cotton, I was glad you’d lost my key.

Under a cloudless sky you turned the key
to my sun when you smiled and kissed me.
I lowered you onto the checked green
cover, your sparkling wet eyes mirrored
my image as you lay, serene and still,
staring into my eyes with a message

written in code, a foreign language
to me. You consumed me, held the key
to my sanity and caressed me as I stayed still,
possessed, then asked you to marry me.
I traced letters on your back as I mastered
seduction skills amongst the evergreen

trees. Those virgin days on the green,
the days before your first miscarriage
and the days before the venomous cancered
cells took hold of you, I turned to whiskey
but you stopped me, stayed strong for me,
my fortress, refusing to stand still.

If only you were here as I sit still,
rewinding the reel of our time on the green,
here as my pillar, here to strengthen me.
If only I could flip back the page
to the time when you turned my key –
instead I’m left alone with unanswered

questions as you lie still, never to age;
and I sit by the green mound where the key
to my sun is lost; leaving me –bewildered.

~~~

Published 2014  – Forward Poetry – The Great British Write Off