Fisher’s Folly
What was it that brought us to Jasper’s,
We both asked of each other
Late that evening.
I paused, long and hard
And thought of
The lines
My need to keep
To clasp her.
The party looked up and stared
Straight at the fasten
Between us, the current
Now visible and
Each arm inter-locked
And in turn
Witnessed by that
Woman in the corner
That I once worked with
Some time ago.
Drunk on love and oblivious
To the unfolding folly
Of a lunar lined
Liverpool Street,
We marvelled at the series of coincidences.
Synchronicity—I called it
Descending into bed:
If we had not had that fight on Primrose Hill,
If you had not changed your mind,
If I had not phoned my mother,
You would have missed me by minutes
And would have gone to Providence
Without my
Cargo of best wishes.
You bought that Neruda book with the Spanish
And English translations.
We took turns
Side by side
In our languages
You chiding me if I missed the title.
I will shelter there for certain
In a future that is not.
I will live there
As if I could afford to.
And the bedlam neighbours
Will keep me up
As they always have
And always will.
To the sleeping lips at her side,
To drink, as I drank there,
Oblivion…
William Harper is a writer from Maryhill, Glasgow, living in London. He has published short stories in The Galway Review, Swimmers Club at Dostoyevsky Wannabe independent press, and poetry in Amyrillis.