Dyane
When I saw you just now (or a nearly-you)
by the chattering docks in Dover,
topless and no older,
sure as Moreau,
cool as Delon,
bouncier than a DS,
unrecognising, oblivious and heading home,
I remembered.
In our way we loved you roughly
one millionth as much
as the child we had right after you died,
one thousandth as much
as we loved each other,
and we mock-pitied the poodle-eager,
baby-red sheet of metal you once were,
the thin tin slab beaten with a tired hammer
by some reluctant Parisian Thor
drunk, no doubt,
on the blissful clichés
of croissants
and Gitanes
and a so-so bottle of Chablis
like the one we once stole
from a restaurant on the Champs Elysées.
We endured trials and errors and curses
trying to wake you on hungover work mornings,
settled, finally, on heaping patience and love on you,
on the gentle kissing of two naked wires
and on faith and prayer
before we sent you on your way
having agreed to disagree.
Three hundred miles you carried us
from the wire and song of Belfast
and the dash and hope of Galway,
to the dolphined strands of Kerry
and that vengeful November night
you finally blew your top,
torn brown canvas flapping back down the N17,
the old royal winds blowing
through our words and our distances,
sudden and final,
like the discovery
of two lies,
like an unveiling
of an old truth.