Dawn After A May Ball, 1996

Staggering home, tiptoeing round the night’s detritus

Exhilarate-exhausted by dancing and imagined futures

Barefoot; rather broken glass than one more moment in those blistering gew-gaw shoes.


We limped, laughed and listed, trusting the morning sun to right us.



It was never a second too soon to reminisce.


Define, refine, and store those moments already passing from the present


Modelled into memories; soon stories; later legends.


Tales to bind us close through coming time and distance; we would always have this.


Now and then, I turn my mind towards the true recalls


They are only flashes: of fire-eaters, the dress (I have it still; it doesn’t fit),


My first oyster, limitless champagne, the soaring of our lifetimes’ possibility.


There is truthful feeling in true memory; stories have shortfalls.



We did not see, then, the approaching years


That they would crash, pile one into another, gathering speed


Some days would die unloved, abused; some would wound; some kill

And even puny minutes rip us from
 ourselves, or our ideals.



That months would line the walls, shrinking rooms to coffin size

And seconds gather stubbornly, not one among them owning guilt

Hours pass us down their line, promising and promising,

While we hid fretful with our talents under darkening skies.

That long walk home, I laugh to remember; the sobering shard


Of sunlight, piercing vision, too much light as blinding as too little, 


And with those tiny, giant agonies of hot and tearing blisters


I had the gall - the nerve! - to think my life was hard.